SE 

N  SICILY 


AND 


ANNE  HOYT 


LIBRARY    I 

ONiveRs»ry  OF 

CALIFOKVWI 
SAN  DIEQO        I 


SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 


'DEMETER'S  WELL- BELOVED  CHILDREN" 


SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

BEING  A  QUEST  FOR   PERSEPHONE 
BY  JANE  AND   PERIPATETICA 


Done  into  the  Vernacular 

By 

ELIZABETH  BISLAND  AND  ANNE  HOYT 


NEW  YORK:  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY.  MCMIX 
LONDON:  JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD 


Copyright, 
BY  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 


To 
ANDERS  AND    FRAU   ZORN 

FROM  THE  NORTH,  IN  MEMORY 
OF  THE  SUN  AND  THE  SOUTH, 
THIS  BOOK  IS  INSCRIBED 

BY 

A  PAIR  OF  "WORD  BRAIDERS" 


NOTE 

'  f  HE  designs  upon  the  cover  of  this  book, 
and  at  the  beads  of  the  chapters,  are  the 
tribe  signs  or  totems  of  the  original  inhab- 
itants of  the  island  of  Sicily,  which  have 
survived  all  conquests  and  races  and  are  still 
considered  as  tokens  of  good  luck  and  de- 
fenders from  the  Evil-eye. 


PREFACE 

« 

WHEN  this  book  was  written — in  the  spring  of  the 
year — the  Land  of  the  Older  Gods  was  unmarred  by 
the  terrible  seismic  convulsions  which  wrought  such 
ruin  in  the  last  days  of  1908. 

Very  sad  to  each  of  us  it  is  when  time  and  the  sorrows 
of  "this  unintelligible  world"  carve  furrows  upon  our 
own  countenances,  but  when  the  visage  of  the  globe 
shrivels  and  wrinkles  with  the  lapse  of  ages  then  the 
greatness  of  the  disaster  touches  the  whole  race.  Sicily, 
whose  history  is  so  full  of  blood  and  tears,  has  been  the 
victim  of  the  greatest  natural  tragedy  that  man's 
chronicles  record  because  of  this  line  drawn  by  Time 
upon  our  planet's  face — yet  it  leaves  her  still  so  fair, 
so  poignantly  lovely,  that  pilgrims  of  beauty  will- 
forgetting  this  slight  blemish — still  journey  to  see  the 
sweetest  remnant  of  the  world's  youth.  Happily 

9 


10  PREFACE 

Messina,  the  one  city  injured,  was  the  one  city  where 
travellers  rarely  paused.  All  the  others  remain 
unmarred  and  are  still  exactly  as  they  were  when  this 
chronicle  of  their  ancient  beauty  and  charm  was  set 

down. 

E.  B.  AND  A.  H. 


CONTENTS 


PREFACE 


CHAPTER  I 
ON  THE  ROAD  TO  THE  LAND  OF  THE  GODS      .    15 

CHAPTER  II 
A  NEST  OF  EAGLES 45 

CHAPTER  III 
ONE  DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS 126 

CHAPTER  IV 
THE  RETURN  OF  PERSEPHONE        178 

CHAPTER  V 
A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES 192 

CHAPTER  VI 

THE  GOLDEN  SHELL 229 

11 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

"Demeter's  Well-Beloved  Children"  ....     Frontispiece 

PAGE 

"A  Place  Where  the  Past  Reveals  Itself" 68 

"Pan's  Goatherd" 132 

"yEtna,  The  Salient  Fact  of  Sicily" 186 

"  The  Saffron  Mass  of  Concordia  " 198 

"Lifting  Themselves  Airily  From  a  Sea  of  Flowers"     .  218 

"Sicily's  Picture-book,  The  Painted  Cart"     ....  234 

"The  Last  Resting  Place  of  Queen  Constance"     .     .     .  249 


13 


SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

CHAPTER    I 

ON  THE  ROAD  TO  THE  LAND  OF  THE  GODS 

"  He  ne'er  is  crown'd  with  immortality 
Who  fears  to  follow  where  airy  voices  lead." 

"On,  Persephone,  Persephone!  .  .  .  Surely  Kore*  is 
in  Hell." 

This  is  a  discouraged  voice  from  the  window. 

"  Peripatetica,  that  sounds  both  insane  and  improper. 
Would  it  fatigue  you  too  much  to  explain  in  the  vernac- 
ular what  you  are  trying,  in  your  roundabout  way,  to 
suggest?" 

Thus  Jane,  a  mere  diaphanous  mauve  cloud,  from 
which  the  glimmering  fire  picked  out  glittering  points 
here  and  there.  When  Jane  takes  to  teagowns  she  is 
really  very  dressy. 

Peripatetica  strolled  up  and  down  the  dusky  drawing- 
room  two  or  three  times,  without  answering.  Outside 
a  raging  wind  drove  furiously  before  it  in  the  darkness 
the  snow  that  flew  upward  in  long  spirals,  like  desperate 
hunted  ghosts.  Finally  she  took  up  a  book  from  the 

15 


16  SEEKERS   IN    SICILY 

table,  and  kneeling,  to  get  the  light  from  the  logs  on 
the  page,  began  to  read  aloud. 

These  two  were  on  such  kindly  terms  that  either 
one  could  read  aloud  without  arousing  the  other  to  open 
violence. 

"Persephone,  sometimes  called  Kore — "  read  Peri- 
patetica,  "  having  been  seized  by  Pluto,  as  she  gathered 
narcissus,  and  wild  thyme,  and  mint,  and  the  violet 
into  her  green  kirtle — was  carried,  weeping  very  bitterly, 
into  his  dark  hell.  And  Demeter,  her  mother,  missing 
her  fair  and  sweet-curled  daughter,  sought  her  through 
all  the  world  with  tears  and  ravings;  the  bitter  sound 
and  moisture  of  her  grief  making  a  noise  as  of  winter  wind 
and  rain.  And  her  warm  heart  being  so  cold  with  pain 
the  blossoms  died  on  her  bosom,  and  her  vernal  hair 
was  shredded  abroad  into  the  air,  and  all  growing  things 
drooped  and  perished,  and  her  brown  benignant  face 
became  white  as  the  face  of  the  dead  are  white " 

Peripatetica  closed  the  book,  put  it  back  on  the  table, 
and  drew  a  hassock  under  her  for  a  seat. 

"I  see,"  said  Jane.  "Demeter  is  certainly  passing 
this  way  to-night,  poor  dear!  It's  a  pity  she  can't 
realize  Persephone,  that  sweet  soul  of  Spring,  will  come 
back.  She  always  does  come  back." 

"Yes;  but  Demeter,  the  mother-earth,  always  fears 
that  this  time  she  may  not;  that  Pluto  will  keep  her  in 
hell  always.  And  every  time  she  makes  the  same  out- 
cry about  it." 

"  I  suppose  she  always  finds  her  first  in  Enna,"  Jane 
hazarded.  "  Isn't  Enna  in  Sicily  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  think  so;  but  I  don't  know  much  about  Sicily, 
though  everybody  goes  there  nowadays.  Let's  go 
there,  Jane,  and  help  Demeter  find  Persephone." 


TO    THE    LAND    OF   THE    GODS         17 

"Let's!"  agreed  Jane,  with  sympathetic  enthusiasm, 
and  they  went. 


Now,  being  Americans,  and  therefore  accustomed  to 
the  most  obliging  behaviour  on  the  part  of  the  male  sex, 
it  never  occurred  to  them  that  Pluto  might  be  ungallant 
enough  to  object  to  their  taking  a  hand  in.  But  he 
did — as  they  might  have  foreseen  would  be  likely  in  a 
person  so  unmannerly  as  to  snatch  lovely  daughters 
from  devoted  mothers. 

It  began  on  the  ocean.  On  quite  a  calm  evening  a 
wave,  passing  from  under  the  side  of  the  ship,  threw 
its  crest  back — perhaps  to  look  at  the  stars — and  fell 
head  over  heels  into  their  open  port.  Certainly  as  much 
as  two  tons  of  green  and  icy  Atlantic  entered  impulsively, 
and  by  the  time  they  were  dried  out  and  comforted  by 
the  tight-corseted,  rosy,  sympathetic  Lemon  every  object 
they  possessed  was  a  mere  bunch  of  depressed  rumples. 
Throughout  the  rest  of  the  voyage  they  presented  the 
unfortunate  appearance  of  having  slept  in  their  clothes, 
including  their  hats.  These  last,  which  they  had  be- 
lieved refreshingly  picturesque,  or  coquettish,  at  start- 
ing, had  that  defiantly  wretched  aspect  displayed  by  the 
broody  hen  after  she  has  been  dipped  in  the  rain-barrel 
to  check  her  too  exuberant  aversion  to  race-suicide. 

That  was  how  Pluto  began,  and  it  swiftly  went  from 
bad  to  worse. 

Three  large  tourist  ships  discharged  bursting  cargoes 
of  humanity  upon  Naples  on  one  and  the  same  day,  and 
the  hotel-keepers  rose  to  their  opportunity  and  dealt 
guilefully  with  the  horde  clamouring  as  with  one  voice 
for  food  and  shelter.  That  one's  hard-won  shelter  was 


18  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

numbered  1 2  bis  (an  artful  concealment  of  the  unlucky 
number  13)  was  apparently  an  unimportant  detail.  It 
was  shelter,  though  even  a  sea-sodden  mind  should  have 
seen  something  suspicious  in  those  egregious  frescoes 
of  fat  ladies  sitting  on  the  knife  edge  of  crescent  moons 
with  which  Room  13  endeavoured  to  conceal  its  real 
banefulness.  Even  such  a  mind  should  have  dis- 
trusted that  flamingly  splendid  fire-screen  in  front  of  a 
walled-up  fireplace;  should  have  scented  danger  in 
that  flamboyant  black  and  gold  and  blue  satin  furniture 
of  the  vintage  of  1870.  There  was  plainly,  to  an  obser- 
vant eye,  something  sinister  and  meretricious  in  so  much 
dressiness,  but  Jane  and  Peripatetica  yielded  them- 
selves up  to  that  serpent  lodging  without  the  smallest 
precaution,  and  lived  to  rue  their  impulsive  confi- 
dence. 

To  begin  with,  Naples,  instead  of  showing  herself  all 
flowers  and  sunshine,  tinkling  mandolins,  and  moon- 
light and  jasper  seas,  was  as  merry  and  pleasing  as  an 
iced  sponge.  Loud  winds  howled  through  the  streets, 
driving  before  them  cold  deluges  of  rain,  and  in  these 
chilling  downpours  the  street  troubadours  stood  one  foot 
in  the  puddles  snuffling  songs  of  "Bella  Napoli"  to 
untuned  guitars,  with  water  dripping  from  the  ends  of 
their  noses.  Peripatetica — whose  eyes  even  under  her 
low-spirited  hat  had  been  all  through  the  voyage  full  of 
dreamful  memories  of  Neapolitan  tea-roses  and  blue 
blandness — curled  up  like  a  disappointed  worm  and 
retired  to  a  fit  of  neuralgia  and  a  hot  water  bottle. 
There  was  something  almost  uncanny  in  the  scornful 
irony  of  her  expression  as  she  hugged  her  steaming 
comforter  to  her  cheek,  and  paced  the  floor  in  time  to 
those  melancholy  damp  wails  from  the  street.  Instead 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  THE  GODS    19 

of  tea-roses  she  was  prating  all  day  of  American  com- 
forts, as  she  clasped  the  three  tepid  coils  of  the  chilly 
steam-heater  to  her  homesick  bosom,  while  Jane 
paddled  about  under  an  umbrella  in  search  of  the 
traditional  ideal  Italian  maid,  who  would  be  willing  to 
contribute  to  the  party  all  the  virtues  and  a  cheerful 
disposition,  for  sixty  francs  a  month. 

Minna,  when  she  did  appear,  proved  to  be  Swiss  in- 
stead of  Italian,  but  she  carried  an  atmosphere  of  happy 
comfort  about  her,  could  spin  the  threads  of  three 
languages  with  her  gifted  tongue,  while  sixty  francs 
seemed  to  satisfy  her  wildest  dreams  of  avarice.  So 
the  two  depressed  pilgrims,  soothed  by  Minna's  promise 
to  assume  their  burdens  the  next  day,  fell  asleep  dream- 
ing that  the  weather  might  moderate  or  even  clear. 

Eight  o'clock  of  the  following  morning  came,  but 
Minna  didn't.  Jane  interviewed  the  concierge,  who 
had  recommended  her.  The  concierge  interviewed  the 
heavens  and  the  earth,  and  the  circumambient  air,  but 
spite  of  outflung  fingers  and  polyglot  cries,  the  elements 
had  nothing  to  say  about  the  matter,  and  for  twenty- 
four  hours  they  declined  to  let  the  secret  leak  out  that 
other  Americans  in  the  same  hotel  had  ravished  their 
Minna  from  them  with  the  glittering  lure  of  twenty 
francs  more. 

Finally  it  dawned  upon  two  damp  and  depressed 
minds  that  some  unknown  enemy  had  put  a  comether 
on  them — though  at  that  time  they  had  no  inkling  of 
his  identity.  Large-eyed  horror  ensued.  First  aid  to 
the  hoodooed  must  be  sought.  Peripatetica  tied  a  strip 
of  red  flannel  around  her  left  ankle. 

"  In  all  these  very  old  countries,"  she  said  oracularly, 
"  secret  malign  influences  from  the  multitudes  of  wicked 


20  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

dead  rise  up  like  vapours  from  the  soil  where  they  have 
been  buried." 

Jane  listened  and,  pale  but  resolute,  went  forth  and 
purchased  a  coral  jettatura. 

"Let  us  pass  on  at  once  from  this  moist  Sodom,"  she 
said. 

Visions  of  sun  and  Sicily  dawned  upon  their  mil- 
dewed imaginations. 

Now  there  is  really  but  one  way  to  approach  Sicily 
satisfactorily.  Of  course  a  boat  leaves  Naples  every 
evening  for  Palermo,  but  the  Mediterranean  is  a  treach- 
erous element  in  February.  It  had  broken  night  after 
night  in  thunderous  shocks  upon  the  sea  wall,  making 
the  heavy  stone-built  hotel  quiver  beneath  their  beds, 
and  in  the  darkness  of  each  night  they  had  seen  the  water 
squadron  charge  again  and  again,  the  foremost  spinning 
up  tall  and  white  to  fling  itself  in  frenzied  futile  spray 
across  the  black  street.  So  that  the  thought  of  trusting 
insides  jaded  by  two  weeks  of  the  Atlantic  to  such  a  foe 
as  this  was  far  from  their  most  reckless  dreams.  The 
none  too  solid  earth  was  none  too  good  for  such  as  they, 
and  a  motor  eats  up  dull  miles  by  magic.  Motors  are 
to  be  had  in  Naples  even  when  fair  skies  lack,  and  with 
a  big  Berliet  packed  with  luggage,  and  with  the  con- 
cierge's tender,  rueful  smile  shedding  blessings,  at  last 
they  slid  southward. 

— Pale  clouds  of  almond  blossoms  were  spread 
against  grey  terraces.  .  .  .  Less  pale  smells  rose  in 
gusty  whiffs.  .  .  .  Narrow  yellow  streets  crooked 
before  them,  where  they  picked  a  cautious  hooting  way 
amid  Italy's  rising  population  complicated  with  goats 
and  asses.  .  .  .  Then  flat,  muddy  roads,  and  Berliet 
bumping,  splashing  between  fields  of  green  arti- 


TO  THE   LAND  OF  THE   GODS         21 

chokes.  .  .  .  The  clouds  held  up;  thinned,  and  parted, 
showing  rifts  of  blue.  .  .  .  Vesuvius  pushed  the  mists 
from  her  brow,  and  purple  shadows  dappled  her  shin- 
ing, dripping  flanks.  .  .  .  Orange  groves  rose  along 
the  way.  Flocks  of  brown  goats  tinkled  past.  More 
almond  boughs  leaned  over  walls  washed  a  faded 
rose.  Church  bells  clanked  sweetly  through  the  moist 
air  from  far-away  hills.  Runnels  chattered  out  from 
secret  channels  fringed  with  fern.  Grey  olive-orchards 
hung  like  clouds  along  the  steep.  .  .  .  The  sun  was 
fairly  out,  and  Italy  assuming  her  old  traditional  air  of 
professional  beauty  among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  .  .  . 

The  Berliet  climbed  as  nimbly  as  a  goat  toward 
Sorrento.  The  light  deepened;  the  sea  began  to  pea- 
cock. More  and  more  the  landscape  assumed  the 
appearance  of  the  impossibly  chromatic  back  drop  of  an 
opera,  and  as  the  turn  was  made  under  the  orange 
avenue  of  the  hotel  at  Sorrento  everything  was  ready  for 
the  chorus  of  merry  villagers,  and  for  the  prima  donna 
to  begin  plucking  song  out  of  her  bosom  with  stereo- 
typed gestures. 

It  was  there  they  began  to  offer  the  light  wines  of  the 
country,  as  sweetly  perfumed  and  innocent  as  spring 
violets;  no  more  like  to  the  astringent  red  inks  mas- 
querading in  straw  bottles  in  America  under  the  same 
names,  than  they  to  Hercules.  The  seekers  of  Per- 
sephone drank  deeply — as  much  as  a  wine-glass  full — 
and  warmed  by  this  sweet  ichor  of  Bacchus  they  bid 
defiance  to  hoodoos  and  pushed  on  to  Amalfi. 

Berliet  swam  along  the  Calabrian  shore,  lifting  them 
lightly  up  the  steeps,  swooping  purringly  down  the 
slopes, — swinging  about  the  bold  curves  of  the  coast; 
rounding  the  tall  spurs,  where  the  sea  shone,  green  and 


22  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

purple  as  a  dove's  neck,  five  hundred  feet  below,  and 
where  orange,  lemon,  and  olive  groves  climbed  the  nar- 
row terraces  five  hundred  feet  above.  They  were 
following  the  old,  old  way,  where  the  Greeks  had  gone, 
where  the  Romans  went,  where  Normans  rode,  where 
Spaniards  and  Saracens  marched ;  the  line  of  the  drums 
and  tramplings  of  not  three,  but  of  three  hundred  con- 
quests! They  were  following — in  a  motor  car — the 
passageway  of  three  thousand  years  of  European  history 
that  was  to  lead  them  back  beyond  history  itself  to 
the  old,  old  gods. 

The  way  was  broad  and  smooth,  looping  itself  like  a 
white  ribbon  along  the  declivity,  and  even  Peripatetica 
admitted  it  was  lovely,  though  she  has  an  ineradicable 
tendency  to  swagger  about  the  unapproachable  superi- 
ority of  Venezuelan  scenery;  probably  because  so  few 
are  in  a  position  to  contradict  her,  or  because  she  enjoys 
showing  off  her  knowledge  of  out-of-the-way  places 
which  most  of  us  don't  go  to.  She  had  always  sniffed  at 
the  Mediterranean  as  overrated  in  the  matter  of  colour, 
and  declared  it  pale  and  dull  beside  the  green  and  blue 
fire  of  Biscayne  Bay  in  Florida,  but  it  was  a  nice  day, 
and  a  nice  sight,  and  Peripatetica  handsomely  acknowl- 
edged that  after  Venezuela  this  was  the  very  best  scenery 
she  knew. 

At  Amalfi 

"  Where  amid  her  mulberry  trees 
Sits  Amalfi  in  the  heat, 
Bathing  ever  her  white  feet 
In  the  tideless  summer  seas," 

they  climbed  175  steps  to  the  Cappucini  convent 
which  hangs  like  a  swallow's  nest  in  a  niche  of  the  cliffs, 
flanked  by  that  famous  terrace  the  artists  paint  again 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  THE  GODS    23 

and  again,  from  every  angle,  at  every  season  of  the  year, 
at  every  hour  of  the  day.  There  they  imbibed  a  very 
superior  tea,  while  sea  and  sky  did  their  handsomest, 
listening  meanwhile  to  a  fellow  tourist  brag  of  having 
climbed  to  Ravello  his  in  motor  car. 

If  one  cranes  one's  neck  from  the  Cappucini  terrace, 
on  a  small  peak  will  be  seen  what  purports  to  be  a 
town,  but  the  conclusion  will  be  irresistible  that  the 
only  way  to  reach  such  a  dizzy  eminence  is  by  goat's 
feet,  or  hawk's  wings,  and  the  natural  inference  is  that 
the  fellow  tourist  is  fibbing.  Nevertheless  one  hates 
to  be  outdone,  and  one  abandons  all  desire  to  sleep  in 
one  of  those  coldly  clean  little  monk-cells  of  the  con- 
vent, and  climbs  resolutely  down  the  175  steps  again 
and  interviews  Berliet.  Berliet  thinks  his  chassis  is 
too  long  for  the  sharp  turns.  Thinks  that  the  road  is 
bad;  that  it  is  also  unsafe;  that  the  hotel  in  Ravello 
is  not  possible;  that  he  suspects  his  off  fore  tire;  that 
there's  not  time  to  do  it  before  dark;  that  his  owner 
forbids  his  going  to  Ravello  at  all;  that  he  has  an  ap- 
pointment that  evening  with  a  good-looking  lady  in 
Amalfi;  that  he  is  tired  with  his  long  run,  and  doesn't 
want  to  any  way.  All  of  which  eleven  reasons  ap- 
peared so  irrefutable,  collectively  and  individually,  that 
Jane  and  Peripatetica  climbed  into  their  seats  and 
announced  that  they  would  go  to  Ravello,  and  go 
immediately. 

Berliet  muttered  unpleasant  things  in  his  native 
tongue  as  to  signori  being  reckless,  obstinate,  and  in- 
considerate; wound  them  up  sulkily  and  took  them. 

Peripatetica  admitted  in  a  whisper  that  up  to  that 
very  day  she  had  never  even  heard  of  Ravello,  which 
proved  to  be  a  really  degrading  piece  of  ignorance,  for 


24  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

every  human  being  they  met  for  the  next  three  months 
knew  all  about  the  place — or  said  they  did.  Further 
experience  taught  them  to  know  that  Italy  is  crowded 
with  little  crumbling  towns  one  has  never  heard  of 
before,  which  when  examined  prove  to  be  the  very 
particular  spots  in  which  took  place  about  a  half  of  all 
the  history  that  ever  happened.  History  being  a  thing 
one  must  be  pretty  skilful  if  one  means  to  evade  it  in 
Italy,  for  the  truth  is  that  whenever  history  took  a 
notion  to  be,  it  promptly  went  on  a  trip  to  Italy  and 
was. 

They  hooted  slowly  again  through  narrow  streets, 
pushed  more  goats  and  children  out  their  way,  and 
then  Berliet  swung  round  on  one  wheel  and  began  to 
mount.  Began  to  climb  like  the  foreseen  goat,  to  soar 
like  the  imagined  hawk,  up  sharp  zigzags  that  lifted 
them  by  almost  exact  parallels.  Everything  that  puts 
on  power  and  speed,  and  makes  noises  like  bomb  ex- 
plosions in  a  saw-factory,  was  pushed  forward  or  pulled 
back.  They  rushed  noisily  round  and  round  the  peak 
at  locomotive  speed,  and  finally  half  way  up  into  the 
very  top  of  the  sky  they  pulled  up  sharply  in  a  cobble- 
paved  square.  Berliet  leaped  nimbly  out,  unscrewed 
a  hot  lid — with  the  tail  of  his  linen  duster — from  which 
lid  liquids  and  steam  and  smells  boiled  as  from  an 
angry  geyser,  and  they  found  themselves  in  the  wild 
eyrie  of  Ravello.  That  ubiquituosity — (with  the  name 
of  a  hotel  on  his  cap) — who  springs  out  from  every 
stone  in  Italy  like  a  spider  upon  the  foolish  swarming 
tourist  fly,  was  waiting  for  them  in  the  square  as  if  by 
appointment,  and  before  they  could  draw  the  first  gasp 
of  relief  he  had  their  possessions  loaded  upon  the  backs 
of  the  floating  population,  and  they  were  climbing  in 


TO   THE   LAND  OF  THE  GODS         25 

the  dusk  a  stone  stairway  that  called  itself  a  street — 
meekly  and  weakly  unwitting  of  their  possible  destina- 
tion. The  destination  proved  to  be  a  vaulted  court- 
yard, opening  behind  a  doorway  which  was  built  of  a 
choice  assortment  of  loot  from  four  periods  of  archi- 
tecture and  sculpture;  proved  to  be  a  reckless  jumble 
of  winding  steps,  of  crooked  passages,  of  terraces,  bal- 
conies, and  loggias,  and  the  whole  of  this  destination 
went  by  the  name  of  the  Hotel  Bellevue.  And  once 
there,  then  suddenly,  after  all  the  noise  and  odours, 
the  confusion  and  human  clatter  of  the  last  three  weeks, 
they  stepped  quietly  out  upon  a  revetment  of  Paradise. 
Below — a  thousand  feet  below — in  the  blue  darkness 
little  sparks  of  light  were  Amalfi.  In  the  blue  darkness 
above,  hardly  farther  away  it  seemed,  were  the  larger 
sparks  of  the  rolling  planets.  The  cool,  lonely  dark- 
ness bathed  their  spirits  as  with  a  blessed  chrism.  The 
place  was,  for  the  night,  theirs  alone,  and  for  one  holy 
moment  the  swarming  tourist  failed  to  swarm. 


"  In  the  Highlands  !    In  the  country  places  1 " — 

murmured  Jane,  gratefully  declining  upon  a  broad 
balustrade,  and  Peripatetica  echoed  softly — declining 
in  her  turn — 

.  .  .  "Oh,  to  dream;  oh,  to  awake  and  wander 
There,  and  with  delight  to  take  and  render 
Through  the  trance  of  silence 
Quiet  breath."  .  .  . 

And  Jane  took  it  up  again — 

.  .  .  "Where  essential  silence  cheers  and  blesses, 
And  forever  in  the  hill  recesses 
Her  more  lovely  music  broods  and  dies." 


26  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

Just  then  essential  silence  was  broken  by  the  last 
protesting  squawk  of  a  virtuous  hen,  who  seemed  to  be 
about  to  die  that  they  might  live.  Peripatetica  recog- 
nized that  plaintive  cry.  Hens  were  kept  handy  in 
fattening-coops  on  the  Plantation,  against  the  sudden 
inroads  of  unexpected  guests. 

"When  the  big-gate  slams  chickens  begin  to  squawk," 
was  a  well-remembered  Plantation  proverb. 

"How  tough  she  will  be,  though,"  Jane  gently 
moaned,  "and  we  shan't  be  able  to  eat  her,  and  she 
will  have  died  in  vain." 

Little  did  she  reck  of  Signor  Pantaleone  Caruso's 
beautiful  art,  for  when  they  had  dressed  by  the  dim, 
soothing  flicker  of  candles  in  big  clean  bed-rooms  that 
were  warmed  by  smouldering  olive-wood  fires,  they 
were  sweetly  fed  on  a  dozen  lovely  dishes;  dishes 
foamy  and  yellow,  with  hot  brown  crusts,  made  seem- 
ingly of  varied  combinings  of  meal  and  cheese,  and 
called  by  strange  Italian  cognomens.  And  the  late — 
so  very  late — pullet  appeared  in  her  due  course  amid 
maiden  strewments  of  crisp  salads;  proving,  by  some 
Pantaleonic  magic,  to  be  aU  that  a  hen  could  or  should 
be.  And  they  drank  gratefully  to  her  manes  in  Signor 
Caruso's  own  wine,  as  mellow  and  as  golden  as  his 
famous  cousin's  voice.  After  which  they  ate  small, 
scented  yellow  apples  which  might  well  have  grown  in 
Hesperidian  gardens,  and  drowsed  contentedly  by  the 
musky  olive-wood  blaze,  among  bowls  of  freesias  and 
violets,  until  the  almost  weird  hour  of  half  past  eight, 
when  inward  blessedness  and  a  day  of  mountain  air 
would  no  longer  be  denied  their  toll. 

Yet  all  through  the  hours  of  sleep  "old  forgotten, 
far-off  things,  and  battles  long  ago"  stirred  like  an 


TO  THE   LAND   OF  THE   GODS         27 

undertone  of  dreams  within  dreams.  The  clank  of 
armed  feet  moved  in  the  street.  Ghostly  bells  rang 
whispered  tocsins  of  alarm,  and  shadowy  life  swept 
back  and  forth  in  the  broken,  deserted  town.  The 
"Brass  Hats"  glimmered  in  the  darkness.  Goths  set 
alight  long  extinguished  fires.  Curved  Saracen  swords 
glittered  faintly,  and  Normans  grasped  the  heights 
with  mailed  hands.  The  Rufolis,  the  d'Affliti,  the 
Confalones,  and  della  Maras  married,  feasted,  and 
warred  again  in  dumb  show,  and  up  and  down  the 
stairs  of  this  very  house  rustled  the  silk  robes  and  soft 
shod  feet  of  sleek  prelates. 

Even  the  sea  below — where  the  new  moon  floated 
at  the  western  rim  like  a  golden  canoe — was  astir  with 
the  myriad  sails  of  revenants.  First  the  white  wings  of 
that— 

"Grave  Syrian  trader  .  .  . 

Who  snatched  his  rudder  and  shook  out  his  sail  .  .  . 
Between  the  Syrtes  and  soft  Sicily." 

After  him  followed  hard  the  small  ghostly  sails  of  the 
Greeks. 

"  They  were  very  perfect  men,  and  could  do  all  and 
bear  all  that  could  be  done  and  borne  by  human  flesh 
and  blood.  Taking  them  all  together  they  were  the 
most  faultlessly  constructed  human  beings  that  ever 
lived,  and  they  knew  it,  for  they  worshipped  bodily 
health  and  strength,  and  spent  the  lives  of  generations 
in  the  cultivation  of  both.  They  were  fighting  men, 
trained  to  use  every  weapon  they  knew,  they  were 
boxers  and  wrestlers,  athletes,  runners  and  jumpers, 
and  drivers  of  chariots;  but  above  all  they  were  sea- 
men, skilled  at  the  helm,  quick  at  handling  the  sails, 
masters  of  the  oar,  and  fearless  navigators  when  half 


28  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

of  all  navigation  led  sooner  or  later  to  certain  death. 
For  though  they  loved  life,  as  only  the  strong  and  the 
beautiful  can  love  it,  and  though  they  looked  forward 
to  no  condition  of  perpetual  bliss  beyond,  but  only  to 
the  shadowy  place  where  regretful  phantoms  flitted  in 
the  gloom  as  in  the  twilight  of  the  Hebrew  Sheol,  yet 
they  faced  dying  as  fighters  always  have  and  always 
will,  with  desperate  hands  and  a  quiet  heart." 

The  golden  canoe  of  the  young  moon  filled  and  sank 
behind  the  sea's  rim,  but  through  the  darkness  came 
the  many-oared  beat  of  ponderous  Roman  galleys 
carrying  the  dominion  of  the  earth  within  their  great 
sides,  and  as  they  vanished  like  a  fog-wreath  along  the 
horizon,  followed  fast  the  hawk-winged  craft  of  the 
keen-bladed,  keen-faced  Saracen,  whose  sickle-like 
crescent  would  never  here  on  this  coast  round  to  the 
full.  For,  far  away  on  the  grey  French  coast  of  Cou- 
tance  was  a  Norman  gentleman  named  Tancred,  very 
strong  of  heart,  and  very  stout  of  his  hands.  There 
was  no  rumour  of  him  here,  as  he  rode  to  the  hunt  and 
spitted  the  wild  boar  upon  his  terrible  length  of  steel. 
What  should  the  Moslems  know  of  a  simple  Norman 
gentleman,  or  care? — and  yet  in  those  lion  loins  lay  the 
seeds  of  a  dozen  mighty  whelps  who  were  to  rend  their 
Christian  prey  from  the  Moslem  and  rule  this  warm 
coloured  South  as  kings  and  dukes  and  counts,  and 
whose  blood  was  to  be  claimed  by  every  crown  in 
Europe  for  a  thousand  years.  Very  few  among  the 
shadowy  sails  were  those  of  the  de  Hautevilles,  but 
quality,  not  quantity,  counts  most  among  men,  and  those 
ships  carried  a  strange,  potent  race.  Anna  Comnena 
thus  describes  one  of  them: 

"This  Robert  de  Hauteville  was  of  Norman  origin 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  THE  GODS    29 

— he  united  a  marvellous  astuteness  with  immense 
ambition,  and  his  bodily  strength  was  prodigious.  His 
whole  desire  was  to  attain  to  the  wealth  and  power  of 
the  greatest  living  men;  he  was  extremely  tenacious 
of  his  designs  and  most  wise  in  finding  means  to  attain 
his  ends.  In  stature  he  was  taller  than  the  tallest;  of 
a  ruddy  hue  and  fair-haired,  he  was  broad-shouldered, 
and  his  eyes  sparkled  with  fire;  the  perfect  proportion 
of  all  his  limbs  made  him  a  model  of  beauty  from  head 
to  heel,  as  I  have  often  heard  people  tell.  Homer  says 
of  Achilles  that  those  who  heard  his  voice  seemed  to 
hear  the  thundering  shout  of  a  great  multitude,  but  it 
used  to  be  said  of  the  de  Hautevilles  that  their  battle 
cry  would  turn  back  tens  of  thousands.  Such  a  man, 
one  in  such  a  position,  of  such  a  nature,  and  of  such 
spirit,  naturally  hated  the  idea  of  service,  and  would 
not  be  subject  to  any  man;  for  such  are  those  natures 
which  are  born  too  great  for  their  surrounding." 


When  morning  dawned  all  spirits  of  the  past  had 
vanished,  and  only  the  noisy  play  of  the  young  hopes 
of  the  Caruso  family  disturbed  the  peace  of  the  echoing 
court.  Jane  insisted  upon  calling  these  innocent  in- 
fants Knickerbockers,  because,  she  said,  they  were 
only  short  Pantaleones — which  is  the  sort  of  mild 
pleasantry  Jane  affects.  Peripatetica  doesn't  lend 
herself  to  these  gentler  forms  of  jest.  It  was  she  who 
put  in  all  that  history  and  poetry.  (See  above.) 

Ravello  used  to  be  famous  for  her  dye  stuffs,  and 
for  the  complete  thorough-goingness  of  her  attacks  of 
plague,  but  her  principal  industries  to-day  are  pulpits, 
and  fondness  for  the  Prophet  Jonah.  Her  population 


30  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

in  the  day  of  dyes  and  plague  was  36,000,  and  is  now, 
by  generous  computation,  about  thirty-six — which  does 
not   include  the   Knickers.     Just  opposite   the  Hotel 
Bellevue  is  one  of  these  pulpits,  in  the  church  of  St. 
John  of  the  Bull;   a  church  which  about  a  thousand 
years  ago  was  a  very  superior  place  indeed;   but  worse 
than  Goths  or  Vandals,  or  Saracens,  or  plague,  was  the 
pernicious  activity  of  the  Eighteenth  Century.     Hardly 
a  church  in  Italy  has  escaped  unscathed  from  its  busy 
rage.    No  sanctuary  was  too  reverend  or  too  beautiful 
to  be  ravaged  in  the  name  of  Palladio,  or  of  "  the  clas- 
sic style."    Marbles  were  broken,  mosaics  torn  out, 
dim  aisles  despoiled,  brass  and  bronze  melted,  carv- 
ings chopped  and  burned,   rich  glass  shattered,  old 
tapestries  flung  on  the  dust  heap.     All  the  treasures  of 
centuries — sweet  with  incense,  softened  and  tinted  by 
time,  sanctified  by  a  thousand  prayers,  and  beautified 
by  the  tenderest  emotions — were  bundled  out  of  the 
way  of  those  benighted  savages,  and  tons  of  lime  were 
had  into  the  poor  gaunt  and  ruined  fanes  to  transform 
them  into  whited  sepulchres  of  beauty.     Blank  plaster 
walls   hid   the   sweetest   of   frescoes;    clustered   grey 
columns   were   limed   into   ghastly   imitations   of   the 
Doric;    soaring  arches — flowered  like  forest  boughs — 
vanished    in    stodgy    vaultings;     Corinthian    pilasters 
shoved  lacelike  rood-screens  out  of  the  way,  and  fat 
sprawling     cherubs     shouldered     bleeding,     shadowy 
Christs  from  the  altars. 

The  spirit  which  inspired  this  stupid  ruthless- 
ness  was  perfectly  expressed  by  Addison,  who,  com- 
menting upon  the  great  Cathedral  of  Siena,  said 
pragmatically: 

"When  a  man  sees  the  prodigious  pains  that  our 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  THE  GODS    31 

forefathers  have  been  at  in  these  barbarous  buildings, 
one  cannot  but  fancy  what  miracles  of  architecture 
they  would  have  left  us  had  they  only  been  instructed 
in  the  right  way;  for  when  the  devotion  of  those  ages 
was  much  warmer  than  it  is  at  present,  and  the  riches 
of  the  people  much  more  at  the  disposal  of  the  priests, 
there  was  so  much  money  consumed  on  these  Gothic 
churches  as  would  have  finished  a  greater  variety  of 
noble  buildings  than  have  been  raised  before  or  since 
that  time.  Than  these  Gothic  churches  nothing  can 
make  a  prettier  show  to  those  who  prefer  false  beauties 
and  affected  ornaments  to  a  noble  and  majestic  sim- 
plicity"— of  dull  plaster! 

Much  has  been  said  of  the  irreverence  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century.  The  Eighteenth  respected  nothing 
their  forefathers  had  wrought;  not  even  in  this  little 
far-away  mountain  town,  and  St.  John  of  the  Bull  is 
now — poor  Saint! — housed  drearily  in  a  dull,  dusty, 
echoing  white  cavern,  with  not  one  point  of  beauty  to 
hold  the  protesting  eye  save  the  splendid  marble  pul- 
pit— escaped  by  some  miracle  of  ruth  to  stand  out  in 
that  dull  waste  upon  delicate  twisted  alabaster  columns, 
which  stand  in  their  turn  upon  crawling  marble  lions. 
Its  four  sides,  and  its  baldachino,  show  beautiful  pat- 
terns of  precious  mosaics,  wrought  with  lapis  lazuli, 
with  verd  antique,  and  with  sanguine  Egyptian  mar- 
bles. The  carefullest  and  richest  of  these  mosaics,  of 
course — along  the  side  of  the  pulpit's  stair — is  devoted 
to  picturing  that  extremely  qualmish  archaic  whale  who 
in  all  Ra vello's  churches  unswallows  the  Prophet  Jonah 
with  every  evidence  of  emotion  and  relief. 

Recently,  in  the  process  of  removing  some  of  the 
acres  of  Eighteenth  Century  plaster,  there  was  brought 


32  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

to  light  in  a  little  chapel  in  the  crypt  a  life-sized  relief 
of  St.  Catherine  and  her  wheel. 

Such  a  lovely  lady! — so  fair,  so  pure,  so  saint-like; 
with  faint  memories  of  old  tinting  on  her  small  lips,  on 
her  close-folded  hair,  and  her  downcast  eyes — that 
even  the  most  frivolous  of  tourists  might  be  moved  to 
tears  by  the  thought  that  she  alone  is  the  one  sweet 
ghost  escaped  from  all  that  brutal  destruction  of  medi- 
aeval beauty;  resurrected  by  the  merest  chance  from 
her  plaster  tomb. 

Jane  at  the  thought  of  it  became  quite  dangerously 
violent.  She  insisted  upon  digging  up  the  Eighteenth 
Century  and  beating  it  to  death  again  with  its  own 
dusty  old  wig,  and  was  soothed  and  calmed  only  by 
being  taken  outside  to  look  once  more  by  daylight  at 
the  delicious  marble  mince  of  fragments  which  the 
Hotel  Bellevue  has  built  into  its  portals — Greek  and 
Roman  capitals  upside  down;  marble  lambs  and 
crosses,  gargoyles,  and  corbels  adorning  the  sides  and 
lintels  in  a  charming  confusion  of  styles,  periods,  and 
purposes. 

Ravello,  as  are  all  these  arid  ancient  towns  from 
which  the  tides  of  life  have  drained  away,  is  as  dry  and 
empty  as  an  old  last  year's  nut;  a  mere  hollow  shell, 
ridged  and  parched,  out  of  which  the  kernel  of  exist- 
ence has  vanished. 

A  tattered,  rosy-cheeked  child  runs  up  the  uncertain 
footway — the  stair-streets — with  feet  as  light  and  sure 
as  a  goat's.  An  old,  old  man,  with  head  and  jaws 
bound  in  a  dirty  red  kerchief,  and  with  the  keen  hawk- 
like profile  of  some  far-off  Saracen  ancestry,  crouches 
in  a  doorway  with  an  outstretched  hand.  He  makes 
no  appeal,  but  his  apparent  confidence  that  his  age 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  THE  GODS    33 

and  helplessness  will  touch  them,  does  touch  them, 
and  they  search  their  pockets  hastily  for  coppers,  with 
a  faint  anguished  sense  of  the  thin  shadow  of  a  dial- 
finger  which  for  them  too  creeps  round  and  round,  as 
for  this  old  derelict  man,  for  this  old  skeleton  city.  .  .  . 

A  donkey  heaped  with  brushwood  patters  up  the 
steep  narrow  way;  so  narrow  that  they  must  flatten 
themselves  against  the  wall  to  admit  of  his  stolidly 
sorrowful  passage.  They  may  come  and  go,  as  all  the 
others  have  come  and  gone,  but  our  brother,  the  ass, 
is  always  there,  recking  not  of  Greek  or  Roman,  of 
American  or  Tedeschi;  for  all  of  them  he  bears  burdens 
with  the  same  sorrowful  stolidity,  and  from  none  does 
he  receive  any  gratitude.  .  .  . 

These  are  the  only  inhabitants  of  Ravello  they  see 
until  they  reach  the  Piazza  and  the  Cathedral  of  Saint 
Pantaleone.  They  know  beforehand  that  the  Cathe- 
dral too  has  been  spoiled  and  desecrated,  but  there 
still  remain  the  fine  bronze  doors  by  the  same  Bari- 
sanus  who  made  the  famous  ones  in  the  church  at 
Monreale  in  Sicily,  and  here  they  find  the  most  beau- 
tiful of  the  pulpits,  and  the  very  biggest  Jonah  and  the 
very  biggest  whale  in  all  Ravello. 

Before  that  accursed  Bishop  Tafuri  turned  it  into  a 
white-washed  cavern  the  old  chroniclers  exhausted 
their  adjectives  in  describing  the  glories  of  Saint  Pan- 
taleone's  Cathedral.  The  richness  of  its  sixteen  enor- 
mous columns  of  verd  antique;  its  raised  choir  with 
fifty-two  stalls  of  walnut-wood,  carved  with  incredible 
richness;  its  high  altar  of  alabaster  under  a  marble 
baldachino  glowing  with  mosaics  and  supported  upon 
huge  red  Egyptian  Syenite  columns — its  purple  and 
gold  Episcopal  throne;  its  frescoed  walls,  its  silver 
3 


34  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

lamps  and  rich  tombs,  its  pictures  and  shrines  and 
hangings — all  pitched  into  the  scrap  heap  by  that 
abominable  prelate,  save  only  this  fine  pulpit,  and  the 
Ambo.  The  Ambo  gives  itself  wholly  to  the  chron- 
icles of  the  prophet  Jonah.  On  one  stairside  he  leaps 
nimbly  and  eagerly  down  the  wide  throat  which  looks 
so  reluctant  to  receive  him,  as  if  suspecting  already  the 
discomfort  to  be  caused  by  the  uneasy  guest.  But 
Jonah's  aspect  is  all  of  a  careless  gaiety;  he  is  not 
taking  this  lodging  for  more  than  a  day  or  two,  and  is 
aware  that  after  his  brief  occultation  his  reappearance 
will  be  dramatic  and  a  portent.  On  the  opposite  stair 
it  happens  as  he  had  prophetically  foreseen,  the  mosaic 
monster  disgorging  him  with  an  air  of  mingled  violence 
and  exhausted  relief. 

No  one  can  tell  us  why  Jonah  is  so  favourite  a  topic 
in  Ravello.  "Chi  lo  sara"  everyone  says,  with  that 
air  of  weary  patience  Italy  so  persistently  assumes  be- 
fore the  eccentric  curiosity  of  Forestieri. 

Rosina  Yokes  once  travelled  about  with  a  funny 
little  playlet  called  "The  Pantomime  Rehearsal," 
which  concerned  itself  with  the  sufferings  of  the  author 
and  stage  manager  of  an  English  house-party's  efforts 
at  amateur  theatricals.  The  enthusiastic  conductor 
used  to  say  dramatically: 

"Now,  Lord  Arthur,  you  enter  as  the  Chief  of  the 
fairies!" 

To  which  the  blond  guardsman  replies  with  puzzled 
heaviness:  "Yes;  but  why  fairies?" 

Producing  in  the  wretched  author  a  sort  of  paralysis 
of  bafflement.  The  same  look  comes  so  often  into  these 
big  Italian  eyes.  The  thing  just  is.  Why  clamour  for 
reasons?  It  is  as  if  these  curious  wandering  folk, 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  THE  GODS    35 

always  staring  and  chattering  and  rushing  about,  and 
paying  good  money  that  would  buy  bread  and  wine, 
merely  to  look  at  old  stones,  should  ask  why  the  sun, 
or  why  the  moon,  or  why  anything  at  all  ?  ... 

So  they  abandon  Jonah  and  take  on  the  pulpit  in- 
stead, the  most  famous  of  all  the  mosaic  pulpits  in  a 
region  celebrated  for  mosaic  pulpits.  It  is  done  after 
the  same  pattern  as  that  of  St.  John  of  the  Bull,  but 
the  pattern  raised  to  the  nth  power.  More  and  bigger 
lions;  more  and  taller  columns;  richer  scrolls  of  mo- 
saics; the  bits  of  stone  more  deeply  coloured;  the 
marble  warmed  by  time  to  a  sweeter  and  creamier 
blond.  The  whole  being  crowned,  moreover,  by  an 
adorable  bust  of  Sigelgaita  Rufolo,  wife  of  the  founder 
of  the  Cathedral  and  giver  of  the  pulpit.  A  pompous 
Latin  inscription  under  the  bust  records  the  virtues  of 
this  magnificent  patron  of  religion.  The  inscription 
including  the  names  of  all  the  long  string  of  stalwart 
sons  Sigelgaita  brought  forth,  and  it  calls  in  dignified 
Latinity  the  attention  of  the  heavenly  powers  to  the 
eminent  deserts  of  this  generous  Rufolo,  this  mediaeval 
Carnegie. 

Sigelgaita's  bust  is  an  almost  unique  example  of  the 
marble  portraiture  of  the  Thirteenth  Century — if  in- 
deed it  truly  be  a  work  of  that  time,  for  so  noble,  so 
lifelike  is  this  head  with  its  rolled  hair,  its  princely 
coronet  and  long  earrings,  so  like  is  it  to  the  head  of 
the  Capuan  Juno,  that  one  half  suspects  it  of  being 
from  a  Roman  hand — those  masters  of  marmoral  rec- 
ords of  character — and  that  it  was  seized  upon  by 
Sigelgaita  to  serve  as  a  memorial  of  herself. 

Bernardo  Battinelli,  a  notary  of  Ravello,  writing  in 
1540  relates  an  anecdote  which  shows  what  esteem  was 


36  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

inspired  by  this  marble  portrait  long  after  its  original 
was  dust: 

"I  remember  in  the  aforesaid  month  and  year,  the 
Spanish  Viceroy  Don  Pietro  di  Toledo  sent  for  the 
marble  bust,  which  is  placed  in  the  Cathedral  and 
much  honest  resistance  was  made,  so  that  the  first 
time  he  that  came  returned  empty-handed,  but  shortly 
after  he  came  back,  and  it  was  necessary  to  send  it  to 
Naples  in  his  keeping,  and  having  sent  the  magnifico 
Giovanni  Frezza,  who  was  in  Naples,  and  Ambrose 
Flomano  from  this  place  to  his  Excellency,  after  much 
ado,  by  the  favour  of  the  glorious  Virgin  Mary,  and  by 
virtue  of  these  messengers  from  thence  after  a  few  days 
the  head  was  returned." 

In  the  year  1851  the  palace  of  these  splendid  Rufoli, 
which  in  the  time  of  Roger  of  Sicily  had  housed  ninety 
knights  with  their  men  at  arms,  had  fallen  to  tragical 
decay.  A  great  landslide  in  the  Fifteenth  Century 
destroyed  the  harbour  of  Amalfi;  hid  its  great  quays 
and  warehouses,  its  broad  streets  and  roaring  markets 
beneath  the  sea,  and  reduced  it  from  a  powerful  Re- 
public, the  rival  of  Venice  and  Genoa,  to  a  mere  fish- 
ing village.  A  little  later  the  plague  followed,  and 
decimated  the  now  poverty-stricken  inhabitants  of 
Ravello,  and  then  the  great  nobles  began  to  drift  away 
to  Naples,  came  more  and  more  rarely  to  visit  their 
Calabrian  seats,  and  these  gradually  sank  in  the  course 
of  time  into  ruin  and  decay.  Fortunately  in  the  year 
before  mentioned  a  rich  English  traveller,  making  the 
still  fashionable  "grand  tour,"  happened  into  Ravello, 
saw  the  possibilities  of  this  crumbling  castle  set  upon 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  sites  in  the  world,  and 
promptly  purchased  it  from  its  indifferent  Neapolitan 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  THE   GODS         37 

owner.  He,  much  absorbed  in  the  opera  dancers  and 
the  small  intrigues  of  the  city,  was  secretly  and  scorn- 
fully amused  that  a  mad  Englishman  should  be  willing 
to  part  with  so  much  good  hard  money  in  exchange  for 
ivied  towers  and  gaping  arches  in  a  remote  country  town. 

The  Englishman  mended  the  arches,  strengthened 
the  towers,  gathered  up  from  among  the  weeds  the 
delicate  sculptures  and  twisted  columns,  destroyed 
nothing,  preserved  and  restored  with  a  reverent  hand, 
and  made  for  himself  one  of  the  loveliest  homes  in  all 
Italy.  It  was  in  that  charming  garden,  swung  high 
upon  a  spur  of  the  glorious  coast,  that  Jane  and  Peri- 
patetica  contracted  that  passion  for  Ravello  which 
haunted  them  with  a  homesickness  for  it  all  through 
Sicily.  For  never  again  did  they  find  anywhere  such 
views,  such  shadowed  green  ways  of  ilex  and  cypress, 
such  ivy-mantled  towers,  such  roses,  such  sheets  of  daffo- 
dils and  blue  hyacinths.  They  dreamed  there  through 
the  long  day,  regretting  that  their  luggage  had  been 
sent  on  to  Sicily  by  water,  and — forgetting  quite  their 
quest  of  Persephone — that  they  were  therefore  unable 
to  linger  in  the  sweet  precincts  of  the  Pantaleone  wines 
and  cooking,  devoting  weeks  to  exploring  the  neigh- 
bouring hills,  and  to  unearthing  more  pulpits  and  more 
Jonahs  in  the  nearby  churches. 

In  the  dusk  they  lingered  by  the  Fountain  of  Strange 
Beasts,  in  the  dusk  they  wandered  afoot  down  the 
cork-screwed  paths  up  which  they  had  so  furiously 
and  smellily  mounted.  Berliet  hooted  contemptuously 
behind  them  as  he  crawled  after,  jeering  as  at  "scare- 
cats,"  who  dared  mount,  but  shrank  from  descending 
these  abrupt  curves  and  tiptilted  inclines  except  in  the 
safety  of  their  own  low-heeled  shoes. 


38  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

At  Amalfi  they  plunged  once  again  into  the  noisy 
tourist  belt — the  va  et  vient,  the  chatter,  the  screaming 
flutter  of  the  passenger  pigeons  of  the  Italian  spring. 
And  yet  there  was  peace  in  the  tiny  white  cells  in  which 
they  hung  over  the  sheer  steep,  while  the  light  died 
nacreously  along  the  West.  There  was  quiet  in  certain 
tiny  hidden  courts  and  terraces  under  the  icy  moon- 
light, and  Jane  said  in  one  of  these — her  utterance 
somewhat  interrupted  by  the  chattering  of  her  teeth, 
for  Italian  spring  nights  are  as  cold  as  Italian  spring 
days  are  warm — Jane  said: 

"What  idiotic  assertions  are  made  in  our  time  about 
ancient  Europe  having  no  love  for,  no  eye  for,  Nature's 
beauty!  Did  you  ever  come  across  a  mediaeval  mon- 
astery, a  Greek  or  Roman  temple  that  was  not  placed 
with  an  unerring  perception  of  just  the  one  point  at 
which  it  would  look  best,  just  at  the  one  point  at  which 
everything  would  look  best  from  it?" 

"  Of  course  I  never  did,"  Peripatetica  admitted  with 
sympathetic  conviction.  "We  get  that  absurd  impres- 
sion of  their  indifference  from  the  fact  that  our  fore- 
bears were  not  nearly  so  fond  of  talking  about  their 
emotions  as  we.  They  had  a  trust  in  their  fellow  man's 
comprehension  that  we  have  lost.  We  always  imagine 
that  no  one  can  know  things  unless  we  tell  them,  and 
tell  them  with  all  our  t's  carefully  crossed  and  our  i's 
elaborately  dotted.  The  old  literatures  are  always 
illustrating  that  same  confidence  in  other  people's 
imaginations,  stating  facts  with  what  to  our  modern 
diffuseness  appears  the  baldest  simplicity,  and  yet 
somehow  conveying  all  their  subtlest  meanings.  Our 
ancestors  happily  were  not  '  inebriated  with  the  exu- 
berance of  their  own  verbosity.'  .  .  .  And  now,  Jane, 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  THE  GODS    39 

bring  that  congealed  nose  of  yours  in  out  of  the  open 
air.  The  moon  isn't  going  on  a  vacation.  She  will 
be  doing  her  old  romance  and  beauty  business  at  the 
same  old  stand  long  after  we  are  dead  and  buried,  not 
to  mention  to-morrow  night." 

Berliet  was  all  his  old  self  the  next  day,  and  they 
swooped  and  soared,  slid  and  climbed  toward  Paestum, 
every  turn  around  every  spur  showing  some  new  beauty, 
some  new  effect.  Gradually  the  coast  sank  and  sank 
toward  the  sea;  the  snow-caps  moved  further  back 
into  the  horizon;  grew  more  and  more  mere  white 
clouds  above,  more  and  more  mere  vapoury  amethyst 
below,  and  at  last  they  shot  at  a  right  angle  into  a  wide 
level  plain,  and  commenced  to  experience  thrills.  For 
the  guide-books  were  full,  one  and  all,  of  weird  tales 
of  Passtum  which  lay,  so  they  said,  far  back  in  a  coun- 
try as  cursed  and  horrible  as  the  dreadful  land  of  the 
Dark  Tower.  About  it,  they  declared,  stretched  lep- 
rous marshes  of  stagnant  ooze  choked  with  fat  reeds, 
where  fierce  buffalo  wallowed  in  the  slime.  The  con- 
tadini  passed  through  its  deadly  miasma  in  shuddering 
haste,  gazing  large-eyed  upon  a  dare-devil  Englishman 
who  had  once  had  the  courage  to  pass  a  night  there  in 
order  to  gratify  a  bold,  fantastic  desire  to  see  the  tem- 
ples by  moonlight.  It  was  such  a  strange,  tremendous 
story,  that  of  the  Greek  Poseidonia,  later  the  Roman 
Paestum. 

Long  ago  those  adventuring  mariners  from  Greece 
had  seized  the  fertile  plain  which  at  that  time  was  cov- 
ered with  forests  of  great  oak  and  watered  by  two  clear 
and  shining  rivers.  They  drove  the  Italian  natives 
back  into  the  distant  hills,  for  the  white  man's  burden 
even  then  included  the  taking  of  all  the  desirable  things 


40  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

that  were  being  wasted  by  incompetent  natives,  and 
they  brought  over  colonists — whom  the  philosophers 
and  moralists  at  home  maligned,  no  doubt,  in  the  same 
pleasant  fashion  of  our  own  day.  And  the  colonists 
cut  down  the  oaks,  and  ploughed  the  land,  and  built 
cities,  and  made  harbours,  and  finally  dusted  their 
busy  hands  and  busy  souls  of  the  grime  of  labour  and 
wrought  splendid  temples  in  honour  of  the  benign  gods 
who  had  given  them  the  possessions  of  the  Italians  and 
filled  them  with  power  and  fatness.  Every  once  in  so 
often  the  natives  looked  lustfully  down  from  the  hills 
upon  this  fatness,  made  an  armed  snatch  at  it,  were 
driven  back  with  bloody  contumely,  and  the  heaping 
of  riches  upon  -riches  went  on.  And  more  and  more 
the  oaks  were  cut  down — mark  that!  for  the  stories  of 
nations  are  so  inextricably  bound  up  with  the  stories 
of  trees — until  all  the  plain  was  cleared  and  tilled;  and 
then  the  foothills  were  denuded,  and  the  wave  of  de- 
struction crept  up  the  mountain  sides  and  they  too  were 
left  naked  to  the  sun  and  the  rains. 

At  first  these  rains,  sweeping  down  torrentially,  un- 
hindered by  the  lost  forests,  only  enriched  the  plain 
with  the  long  hoarded  sweetness  of  the  trees,  but  by 
and  by  the  living  rivers  grew  heavy  and  thick,  vomit- 
ing mud  into  the  ever-shallowing  harbours,  and  the 
knds  soured  with  the  undrained  stagnant  water. 
Commerce  turned  more  and  more  to  deeper  ports,  and 
mosquitoes  began  to  breed  in  the  brackish  soil  that 
was  making  fast  between  the  city  and  the  sea.  Who 
of  all  those  powerful  land-owners  and  rich  merchants 
could  ever  have  dreamed  that  little  buzzing  insects 
could  sting  a  great  city  to  death?  But  they  did. 
Fevers  grew  more  and  more  prevalent.  The  malaria- 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  THE  GODS         41 

haunted  population  went  more  and  more  languidly 
about  their  business.  The  natives,  hardy  and  vigor- 
ous in  the  hills,  were  but  feebly  repulsed.  Carthage 
demanded  tribute,  and  Rome  took  it,  and  changed  the 
city's  name  from  Poseidonia  to  Passtum.  After  Rome 
grew  weak  Saracen  corsairs  came  in  by  sea  and  grasped 
the  slackly  defended  riches,  and  the  little  winged  poi- 
soners of  the  night  struck  again  and  again,  until  grass 
grew  in  the  streets,  and  the  wharves  crumbled  where 
they  stood.  Finally  the  wretched  remnant  of  a  great 
people  wandered  away  into  the  more  wholesome  hills, 
the  marshes  rotted  in  the  heat  and  grew  up  in  coarse 
reeds  where  corn  and  vine  had  flourished,  and  the  city 
melted  back  into  the  wasted  earth.  So  wicked  a  name 
had  the  miasmatic,  fever-haunted  plain  that  age  after 
age  rolled  away  and  only  birds  and  serpents  and  wild 
beasts  dared  dwell  there,  or  some  outlaw  chose  to  face 
its  sickly  terrors  rather  than  the  revenge  of  the  law. 

"Think,"  said  Jane,  "of  the  sensations  of  the  man 
who  came  first  upon  those  huge  temples  standing 
lonely  in  the  naked  plain!  So  lonely  that  their  very 
existence  had  been  long  forgotten.  Imagine  the  awe 
and  surprise  of  such  a  discovery 

They  were  spinning — had  been  spinning  for  half  an 
hour — along  a  rather  bad  highway,  and  Peripatetica 
found  it  hard  to  call  up  the  proper  emotions  in  answer 
to  Jane's  suggestion,  so  occupied  was  she  in  looking 
for  the  relishing  grimness  insisted  upon  by  the  guide- 
books. There  were  reeds;  there  were  a  very  few  in- 
nocuous-looking buffalo,  but  for  the  most  part  there 
were  nice  cultivated  fields  of  grain  and  vines  on  either 
hand,  and  occasionally  half  a  mile  or  so  of  neglected 
shrubby  heath. 


42  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

"Why,  half  of  Long  Island  is  wilder  than  this!" 
grumbled  Peripatetica.  "Where's  the  Dark  Tower 
country?  Childe  Roland  would  think  this  a  formal 
garden.  I  insist  upon  Berliet  taking  us  somewhere 
that  will  thick  our  blood  with  horror." 

As  it  turned  out,  a  wise  government  had  drained  the 
accursed  knd,  planted  eucalyptus  trees,  and  was  slowly 
reclaiming  the  plain  to  its  old  fertility,  but  the  guide- 
books feel  that  the  story  is  too  good  to  be  spoiled  by 
modern  facts,  and  cling  to  the  old  version  of  1860. 

Just  then — by  way  of  compensation,  Berliet  having 
fortunately  slowed  down  over  a  bad  bit — an  old  altar- 
piece  of  a  Holy  Family  stepped  down  out  its  frame  and 
came  wandering  toward  them  in  the  broad  light  of  day. 
On  the  large  mild  gray  ass — a  real  altar-piece  ass — 
sat  St.  Anna  wrapped  in  a  faded  blue  mantle,  carrying 
on  her  arm  a  sleeping  child.  At  her  right  walked  the 
child's  mother,  whose  thin  olive  cheek  and  wide,  timid 
eyes  seemed  half  ghostly  under  the  white  linen  held 
together  with  one  hand  under  her  chin.  Young  St. 
John  led  the  ass.  A  wreath  of  golden-brown  curls 
blew  about  his  golden-red  cheeks,  and  he  wore  goat- 
hide  shoes,  and  had  cross-gartered  legs. 

Jane  now  says  they  never  saw  them  at  all.  That  it 
was  just  a  mirage,  or  a  bit  of  glamourie,  and  that  there 
is  nothing  remaining  in  new  Italy  which  could  look  so 
like  the  typical  old  Italy — but  if  Jane  is  right  then 
how  did  the  two  happen  to  have  exactly  the  same 
glamour  at  exactly  the  same  moment?  How  could 
they  both  imagine  the  benign  smile  of  that  strayed  altar 
picture  ?  Is  it  likely  that  a  motor  car  would  lend  itself 
to  sacred  visions?  I  ask  you  that! 

There    was    certainly    some  illusion — not  sacred — 


TO  THE   LAND   OF  THE   GODS         43 

about  the  dare-devilisliness  of  that  Englishman  who 
once  spent  a  moonlit  night  at  the  temples,  for  a  little 
farming  village  lies  close  to  the  enclosure  that  shuts 
off  the  temples  from  the  highway,  the  inhabitants  of 
which  village  seemed  as  meek  as  sheep  and  anything 
but  foolhardy,  and  there  was  reason  to  believe  that 
they  spend  every  night  there,  whether  the  moon  shines 
or  not. 

But  the  Temples  were  no  illusion,  standing  in  stately 
splendour  in  the  midst  of  that  wide  shining  green  plain, 
by  a  sea  of  milky  chalcedony,  and  in  a  semi-circle  be- 
hind them  a  garland  of  purple  mountains  crowned  with 
snow.  Great-pillared  Neptune  was  all  of  dull,  burned 
gold,  its  serried  columns  marching  before  the  blue 
background  with  a  curious  effect  of  perfect  vigour  in 
repose,  of  power  pausing  in  solid  ease.  No  picture  or 
replica  gives  the  sense  of  this  energy  and  power.  Doric 
temples  tend  to  look  lumpish  and  heavy  in  reproduc- 
tions, but  the  real  thing  at  its  very  best  (and  this  shrine 
of  Neptune  is  the  perfectest  of  Greek  temples  outside 
of  Athens)  has  a  mighty  grace,  a  prodigious  suggestion 
of  latent  force,  of  contained,  available  strength  that 
wakes  an  awed  delight,  as  by  the  visible,  material  ex- 
pression of  an  ineffable,  glorious,  all-powerful  god. 

"Well,  certainly  those  Greeks !"  gasped  Jane 

when  the  full  meaning  of  it  all  began  to  dawn  upon 
her,  and  Peripatetica,  who  usually  suffers  from  chronic 
palpitation  of  the  tongue,  simply  sat  still  staring  with 
shining  eyes.  Greeks  to  her  are  as  was  King  Charles' 
head  to  Mr.  Dick.  She  is  convinced  the  Greeks  knew 
everything  worth  knowing,  and  did  everything  worth 
doing,  and  any  further  proof  of  their  ability  only  fills 
her  with  a  gratified  sense  of  "  I-told-you-so-ness."  So 


44  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

she  lent  a  benign  ear  to  a  young  American  architect 
there,  who  pointed  out  many  constructive  details, 
which,  under  an  appearance  of  great  simplicity,  proved 
consummate  grasp  of  the  art,  and  of  the  subtlest  secrets 
of  architectural  harmonics. 

Before  the  land  made  out  into  the  harbour  Posei- 
don's temple  stood  almost  on  the  sea's  edge.  The  old 
pavement  of  the  street  before  its  portals  being  disin- 
terred shows  the  ruts  made  by  the  chariot  wheels  still 
deep-scored  upon  it,  and  it  was  here 

"The  merry  Grecian  coaster  came 
Freighted  with  amber  grapes,  and  Chian  wine, 
Green  bursting  figs,  and  tunnies  steeped  in  brine — " 

anchoring  almost  under  the  shadow  of  the  great  fane 
of  the  Lord  of  the  Waters;  and  here,  when  his  cargo 
was  discharged,  he  went  up  to  offer  sacrifices  and 
thanks  to  the  Sea-god  of  Poseidonia,  and 

"Hung  his  sea-drenched  garments  on  the  wall," 

and  prayed  for  skill  to  outwit  his  fellows  in  trade;  for 
fair  winds  to  blow  him  once  more  to  Greece. 

Besides  the  temple  of  Neptune  there  was,  of  course, 
the  enormous  Basilica,  and  a  so-called  temple  of 
Ceres,  and  some  Roman  fragments,  but  these  were  so 
much  less  interesting  than  the  golden-pillared  shrine 
of  the  Trident  God,  that  the  rest  of  the  time  was  spent 
in  looking  vainly  and  wistfully  for  Paestum's  famous 
rose  gardens,  of  which  not  even  the  smallest  bud  re- 
mained, and  then  Berliet  gathered  them  up,  and  went 
in  search  of  the  Station  of  La  Cava. 


CHAPTER   II 
A  NEST  OF  EAGLES 

"So  underneath  the  surface  of  To-day 
Lies  yesterday  and  what  we  call  the  Past, 
The  only  thing  which  never  can  decay." 

TRUSTFULLY  and  sleepily  Jane  and  Peripatetica,  in 
the  icy  starlight  of  La  Cava,  boarded  the  express  of 
European  de  Luxe.  Drowsy  with  the  long  day's  rush 
through  the  wind,  they  believed  that  the  train's  clatter 
would  be  a  mere  lullaby  to  dreams  of  golden  temples 
and  iris  seas  and  "the  glory  that  was  Greece."  No 
robbers  or  barbarians  nearer  than  defunct  corsairs 
crossed  their  imaginings;  the  hoodoo  had  faded  from 
mind,  shaken  off  by  the  glorious  swoop  of  Berliet,  and 
they  supposed  it  left  behind  at  Naples,  clinging  bat- 
like  under  the  gaudy  frescoes  of  Room  13  to  descend 
on  other  unwary  travellers. 

Half  of  their  substance  had  been  paid  to  the  Com- 
pagnie  Internationale  des  Wagon  Lits  for  this  night's 
rolling  lodging,  and  they  begrudged  it  not,  remember- 
ing that  it  entitled  their  fatigue  to  the  comforts  of  a 

45 


46  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

room  to  themselves  in  all  the  vaunted  superior  civil- 
ization and  decencies  of  a  European  compartment  car. 
Presenting  their  tickets  in  trusting  calm  they  prepared 
to  follow  the  porter  to  a  small  but  cosy  room  where 
two  waiting  white  beds  lay  ready  for  their  weary  heads. 
But  the  Hoodoo  had  come  on  from  Naples  in  that  very 
train.  Compartments  and  beds  there  were,  but  not 
for  them.  The  porter  led  on,  and  in  a  toy  imitation  of 
an  American  Pullman,  showed  them  to  a  Lilliputian 
blue  plush  seat  and  a  ridiculous  wooden  shelf  two  feet 
above  that  pretended  it  could  unfold  itself  into  an 
upper  berth.  This  baby  section  in  the  midst  of  a 
shrieking  babble  of  tongues,  a  suffocation  of  unaired 
Latin  and  Teutonic  humanity,  was  their  compartment 
room,  "a  vous  seules,  Mesdames!"  telegraphed  for  to 
Rome  and  made  over  to  them  with  such  flourish  by 
the  polite  agent  at  Naples! 

If  the  car  was  Lilliputian  its  passengers  were  not. 
Mammoth  French  dowagers  and  barrel-like  Germans 
overflowed  all  its  tiny  blue  seats,  and  the  few  slim 
Americans  more  than  made  good  by  their  gener- 
ous excess  of  luggage.  It  was  a  very  sardine  box. 

In  a  fury  too  deep  for  words  or  tears  Peripatetica 
.and  Jane  sank  into  the  few  narrow  inches  the  porter 
managed  to  clear  for  them,  and  resigned  themselves 
to  leaving  their  own  dear  bags  in  the  corridor. 

"They  will,  of  course,  be  stolen,  but  then  we  may 
never  need  them  again.  We  can't  undress,  and  shall 
probably  be  suffocated  long  before  morning,"  remarked 
Peripatetica  bitterly,  with  a  hopeless  glare  at  the  imi- 
tation ventilators  not  made  to  open.  Their  fury  deep- 
ened at  the  slow  struggles  of  the  porter  to  adjust  the 
inadequate  little  partitions,  at  the  grimy  blankets  and 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  47 

pillows  on  the  little  shelves,  at  the  curtains  which  didn't 
conceal  them,  the  wash-room  without  water  or  towels 
and  the  cattlc-train-like  burden  of  grunts  and  groans 
and  smells  floating  on  the  unbreathable  atmosphere. 

Morning  dawned  golden  on  the  flying  hills  at  last, 
and  then  deepest  fury  of  all  was  Peripatetica's,  that 
passionate  lover  of  fresh  air,  to  find  that  in  spite  of 
everything  she  had  slept,  and  was  still  breathing! 

Calabria,  lovely  as  ever,  melted  down  to  her  glow- 
ing seas;  one  last  swooping  turn  of  the  rails,  and  an- 
other line  of  faint  hills  rose  opposite — and  that  was 
Sicily! 

The  train  itself  coiled  like  a  weary  serpent  into  a 
waiting  steamer,  which  slipt  smoothly  by  the  ancient 
perils  of  Scylla  and  Charybdis;  and  nearer  and  nearer 
it  rose,  that  gold  and  amethyst  mountain-home  of  the 
Old  Gods.  The  white  curve  of  Messina,  "the  Sickle," 
showed  clear  at  the  base  of  the  cloud-flecked  hills. 
Kronos,  father  of  Demeter,  enthroned  on  those  very 
mountain  peaks,  had  dropped  his  scythe  at  the  sea's 
edge,  cutting  space  there  for  the  little  homes  of  men, 
and  leaving  them  the  name  of  his  shining  blade,  "Zan- 
cle,"  the  sickle,  through  all  Greek  days.  It  was  there, 
really  there  in  actual  vision,  land  of  fire  and  myths; 
the  place  of  the  beginnings  of  gods  and  men. 

Peripatetica  and  Jane  burst  from  the  car  and  climbed 
to  the  narrow  deck  above  to  get  clearer  view.  The 
sea  wind  swept  the  dust  from  their  eyes  and  all  fatigue 
and  discomfort  from  their  memories.  Their  spirits 
rose  to  meet  that  Spirit  Land  where  Immortals  had 
battled  and  labored;  had  breathed  themselves  into 
man, — the  divine  spirit  stirring  his  little  passing  life 
with  revelation  of  that  which  passeth  not;  that  soul 


48  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

of  beauty  and  wisdom,  and  of  poetry  which  should 
move  through  the  ages.  Their  eyes  were  wide  to  see 
the  land  where  man's  imaginings  had  brought  the 
divine  into  all  surroundings  of  his  life,  until  every  tree 
and  spring  and  rock  and  mountain  grew  into  semblance 
of  a  god.  Oh,  was  it  all  a  "creed  outworn"?  Here 
might  not  one  perchance  still  see 

"Proteus  rising  from  the  sea, 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn  "  ? 

In  these  very  mountains  before  them  had  man  him- 
self been  shaped;  hammered  out  by  Vulcan  upon  his 
forge  in  ^Etna.  Here,  in  this  knd  he  had  been  taught 
by  Demeter  to  nourish  himself  from  the  friendly  earth, 
taught  how  to  shelter  himself  from  the  inclement  ele- 
ments by  Orion,  Hunter  and  Architect — a  god  before 
he  was  a  star.  There  Zeus,  all-conquering  wisdom, 
had  prevailed  against  his  opponents  and  placed  his 
high  and  fiery  seat,  this  very  ./Etna,  upon  the  bound 
body  of  the  kst  rebellious  Titan,  making  even  the 
power  of  ignorance  the  pediment  of  his  throne.  There 
the  fair  maiden  goddesses,  Artemis  and  Minerva  and 
Persephone,  had  played  in  flowery  fields.  There  had 
Pluto  stolen  the  fairest  away  from  among  the  blossoms, 
the  entrance  to  his  dark  underworld  gaping  suddenly 
among  the  sunny  meadows.  There  had  the  desolate 
mother  Demeter  lit  at  .<Etna  the  torch  for  her  long  and 
desperate  search.  There  had  demi-gods  and  heroes 
lived  and  loved  and  struggled.  Its  very  rivers  were 
transformed  nymphs,  its  islands  rocks  tossed  in  Cyclop's 
battles.  There  Ulysses  had  wandered  and  suffered; 
there  Pythagoras  had  taught,  Theocritus  had  sung. 
There — but  man  nor  woman  either  is  yet  entirely  spirit; 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  49 

and  though  it  was  in  truth  the  actual  land  of  their 
pilgrimage,  of  the  birthpkce  of  myth,  of  beauty 
and  wonder,  Persephone  had  not  yet  returned.  The 
icy  wind  was  turning  all  sentiment  into  shivers  and 
they  fled  back  to  the  Twentieth  Century  and  its  Pull- 
man car. 

Messina  looked  still  more  enticing  when  close  at 
hand;  both  prosperous  and  imposing  with  its  lines  of 
stone  quays  and  palaces  on  the  sea  front.  Beyond 
these  there  were  famous  fountains  they  knew,  and 
colourful  marketplaces,  and  baroque  churches  with 
spires  like  fluted  seashells,  and  interiors  gleaming  like 
sea  caverns  with  all  the  rich  colour  and  glow  of  Sicilian 
mosaics.  In  one  of  the  churches  was  the  shrine  of  a 
miracle-working  letter  from  the  Madonna,  said  to  have 
been  written  by  her  own  hand.  There  was  besides  an 
old  Norman  Cathedral,  built  of  Greek  ruins  and  Ro- 
man remains;  much  surviving  Spanish  quaintness,  but 
to  two  unbreakfasted  Wagon  Lit  passengers  all  this 
was  but  ashes  in  the  mouth.  They  felt  that  the  at- 
tractions of  Messina  could  safely  remain  in  the  guide- 
books. They  were  impelled  on  to  Taormina.  .  .'  . 
No  prophetic  vision  warned  them  that  in  their  haste 
they  were  losing  the  chance  of  ever  seeing  that  doomed 
Sickle-City  at  all.  In  that  placid,  modern  port,  where 
travellers  for  pleasure  rarely  paused,  there  seemed 
nothing  to  stay  them.  No  ominous  shadow  lay  upon 
it  to  tell  that  it  was  marked  for  destruction  by  "the 
Earth-Shaker,"  or  that  before  the  year  had  gone  it 
would  be  echoing  the  bitter  cry  of  lost  Berytus : 

"  Here  am  I,  that  unhappy  city — no  more  a  city- 
lying  in  ruins,  my  citizens  dead  men,  alas!    most  ill- 
fated  of  all!    The  Fire-god  destroyed  me  after  the 
4 


50  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

shock  of  the  Earth-Shaker.  Ah  me!  From  so  much 
loveliness  I  am  become  ashes.  Yet  do  ye  who  pass 
me  by  bewail  my  fate,  and  shed  a  tear  in  my  honour 
who  am  no  more.  A  tomb  of  tombless  men  is  the 
city,  under  whose  ashes  we  lie." 

Taormina,  the  little  mountain  town,  crouched  under 
Etna's  southern  side,  not  far  from  those  meadows  of 
Enna  from  which  Persephone  had  been  ravished  away. 
There  she  would  surely  first  return  to  the  upper  world, 
and  Demeter's  joy  burst  into  flowers  and  sunshine. 
So  there  they  decided  to  seek  her,  and  turned  their 
grimy  faces  straight  to  the  train.  The  only  sight- 
seeing that  appealed  to  them  now  was  a  vision  of  the 
San  Domenico  Hotel  with  quiet  white  monkish  cells 
like  to  Amalfi's  to  rest  their  weariness  in,  peaceful 
pergolas,  large  bathtubs,  and  a  hearty  table  d'hote 
luncheon. 

So  they  stayed  not  for  sights,  and  stopped  not  for 
stone — nor  breakfast,  nor  washing,  nor  even  for  their 
trunks,  which  had  not  materialized,  but  sat  in  a  dusty 
railway  carriage  impatient  for  the  train  to  start. 

"It  was  beautiful,"  remarked  Jane,  thinking  of  the 
harbour  approach  to  the  city. 

"Yes,"  said  Peripatetica,  jumping  at  her  unex- 
pressed meaning  as  usual.  "Messina  has  always  been 
a  famous  beauty,  and  always  will  be.  But  she  is,  and 
always  has  been,  an  incorrigible  cocotte, — submitting 
without  a  struggle  to  every  invader  of  Sicily  in  turn. 
And  she  certainly  doesn't  in  the  least  look  her  enor- 
mous age  in  spite  of  having  led  a  vie  orageuse.  When- 
ever the  traces  of  her  past  become  too  obvious  she  goes 
and  takes  an  earthquake  shock,  they  say,  and  rises 
fresh  and  rejuvenated  from  the  ruins,  ready  to  coquette 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  51 

again  with  a  new  master  and  be  enticing  and  treacher- 
ous all  over  again."  * 

It  was  hard  to  imagine  on  her  modern  boulevards 
the  armies  of  the  past — all  those  many  conquerors  that 
Messina  had  herself  called  in,  causing  half  the  wars 
and  troubles  of  Sicily  by  her  invitations  to  new  powers 
to  come  and  take  possession,  and  to  do  the  fighting  for 
her  that  she  never  would  do  for  herself;  betraying  in 
turn  every  master,  good  or  bad,  for  the  excitement  of 
getting  a  new  one.  .  .  . 

Greeks,  Carthagenians,  Mamertines,  Romans,  Arabs, 
Normans,  Spaniards — where  were  the  ways  of  their 
tramplings  now?  On  that  modern  light-house  point 
there  was  not  even  a  trace  of  the  Golden  Temple  in 
which  Neptune  sat  on  a  crystal  altar  "begirt  with 
smooth-necked  shells,  sea-weeds,  and  coral,  looking 
out  eastward  to  the  morning  sun?" 

"If  it  were  near  the  i5th  of  August  I  would  stay 
here  in  spite  of  everything,"  ventured  Peripatetica, 
looking  up  from  her  book.  "The  Procession  of  the 
Virgin  is  the  only  thing  really  worth  seeing  left  in 
Messina."  And  in  answer  to  Jane's  enquiring  eye- 
brows Peripatetica  began  to  read  aloud  of  that  extraor- 
dinary pageant  of  the  Madonna  della  Lettera  and  her 
car,  that  immense  float,  dragged  through  Messina's 
streets  by  hundreds  of  men  and  women;  of  its  tower 
fifty  feet  high,  on  which  are  ranged  tiers  over  tiers  of 
symbolically  dressed  children  standing  upon  all  its  dif- 
ferent stories;  poor  babies  with  painted  wings  made 
to  fly  around  on  iron  orbits  up  to  the  very  top  of  the 

*  Messina  suffered  a  terrific  earthquake  shock  in  1708  and  has 
had  in  her  history  serious  damage  from  seismic  convulsions  no  less 
than  nine  times. 


52  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

erection;  of  the  great  blue  globe  upon  which  stands 
a  girl  dressed  in  spangled  gauze,  representing  the 
Saviour,  holding  upon  her  right  hand — luckily  sup- 
ported by  iron  machinery — another  child  representing 
the  Soul  of  the  Blessed  Virgin. 

"Not  real  children — not  live  babies!"  protested  Jane. 

"Yes,  indeed,  just  listen  to  Hughes'  account  of  it." 
Peripatetica  read :  "  At  an  appointed  signal  this  well- 
freighted  car  begins  to  move,  when  it  is  welcomed  with 
reiterated  shouts  and  vivas  by  the  infatuated  populace ; 
drums  and  trumpets  play;  the  Dutch  concert  in  the 
machine  commences,  and  thousands  of  pateraroes  fired 
off  by  a  train  of  gunpowder  make  the  shores  of  Calab- 
ria re-echo  with  the  sound;  then  angels,  cherubim, 
seraphim,  and  'animated  intelligences,'  all  begin  to 
revolve  in  such  implicated  orbits  as  to  make  even  the 
spectators  giddy  with  the  sight ;  but  alas  for  the  unfor- 
tunate little  actors  in  the  pantomime;  they  in  spite  of 
their  heavenly  characters  are  soon  doomed  to  experience 
the  infirmities  of  mortality;  angels  droop,  cherubim  are 
scared  out  of  their  wits,  seraphim  set  up  outrageous 
cries,  'souls  of  the  universe'  faint  away,  and  'moving 
intelligences'  are  moved  by  the  most  terrible  inversion 
of  the  peristaltic  nerves;  then  thrice  happy  are  those  to 
whom  an  upper  station  has  been  allotted.  Some  of 
the  young  brats,  in  spite  of  the  fracas,  seem  highly  de- 
lighted with  their  ride,  and  eat  their  ginger-bread  with 
the  utmost  composure  as  they  perform  their  evolutions; 
but  it  not  unfrequently  happens  that  one  or  more  of 
these  poor  innocents  fall  victims  to  this  revolutionary 
system  and  earn  the  crown  of  martyrdom." 

Jane  seized  the  book  to  make  sure  it  was  actually 
so  written  and  not  just  one  of  Peripatetica's  flights  of 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  53 

fancy,  and  plunged  into  an  account  of  another  part  of 
the  pageant — the  giant  figures  of  Saturn  and  Cybele 
fraternizing  amiably  with  the  Madonna;  Cybele 
"seated  on  a  large  horse  clothed  like  a  warrior.  Her 
hair  is  tied  back  with  a  crown  of  leaves  and  flowers 
with  a  star  in  front,  and  the  three  towers  of  Messina. 
She  wears  a  collar  and  a  large  blue  mantle  covered 
with  stars,  which  lies  on  the  back  of  the  horse.  A 
mace  of  flowers  in  her  right  hand  and  a  lance  in  her 
left.  The  horse  is  barded,  and  covered  with  rich  trap- 
pings of  red,  with  arabesques  of  flowers  and  rib- 
bons." ...  * 

"What  curious  folk  the  Sicilians  are!  They  accept 
new  creeds  and  ceremonies,  but  the  old  never  quite 
lose  their  place.  Where  else  would  the  Madonna 
allow  a  Pagan  goddess  to  figure  in  her  train  ?  And  did 
you  notice  in  this  very  procession  they  still  carry  the 
identical  skin  of  the  camel  on  which  Roger  entered  the 
city  when  he  began  his  conquest  of  Sicily?  I  wish  it 
were  near  the  i5th  of  August!" 

"I  wish  it  were  near  the  time  this  train  starts,  if  it 
ever  does,"  replied  Peripatetica  crossly. 

And,  as  if  but  waiting  the  expression  of  her  wish, 
the  train  did  begin  to  stream  swiftly  along  the  deeply 
indented  coast  beside  whose  margin  came  that  wild 
Norman  raid  upon  Messina  of  the  dauntless  young 
hawks  of  de  Hauteville.  Roger,  the  youngest  and 
greatest  of  the  twelve  sons,  accompanied  by  but  sixty 
knights  and  their  squires,  two  hundred  men  in  all, 
pouncing  daringly  upon  a  kingdom.  A  half  dozen 
galleys  slipped  over  from  Reggio  by  night,  and  the 

*  All  this,  along  with  every  treasure  of  her  past,  has  now  disap- 
peared. 


54  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

morning  sun  flashed  upon  the  dew-wet  armour  as  they 
galloped  through  the  dawn  to  Messina's  walls.  The 
great  fortified  city  was  in  front  of  them,  a  hostile  coun- 
try around  them,  and  a  navy  on  the  watch  to  cut  them 
off  from  reinforcements  or  return  by  sea.  That  they 
should  succeed  was  visibly  impossible.  But  deter- 
mined faces  were  under  the  steel  visors,  the  spirit  of 
conquering  adventure  shining  in  their  grey  eyes. 
Every  man  of  the  host  was  confessed  and  absolved  for 
this  fight  of  the  Cross  against  the  Crescent  and  their 
young  Commander  was  dedicated  to  a  life  pure  and 
exemplary,  if  to  him  was  entrusted  the  great  task  of 
winning  Sicily  to  Christian  dominion. 

They  did  it  because  they  thought  they  could  do  it; 
as  in  the  old  Greek  games  success  was  to  the  man  who 
believed  in  his  success.  The  Saracens  fell  into  a  panic 
at  the  sight  of  that  intrepid  handful  at  their  gates, 
thinking  from  the  very  smallness  of  the  band  that  it 
must  be  the  advance  pickets  of  a  great  army  already 
past  their  guarding  navy  and  advancing  upon  the  city. 

"So  the  Saracens  gave  up  in  panic,  and  Roger  and 
his  two  hundred  took  all  the  town  with  much  gold  and 
many  slaves,  as  was  a  conquering  warrior's  due." 

The  key  of  Messina  was  sent  to  Brother  Robert  in 
Calabria  with  the  proud  message  that  the  city  was  his 
to  come  and  take  possession  of.  And  the  Normans 
went  on  with  the  same  bold  confidence;  and  always 
their  belief  was  as  a  magic  buckler  to  them  as  over  all 
the  island  they  extended  their  conquest.  Seven  hun- 
dred Normans  routed  an  army  of  15,000  Saracens, 
killing  10,000.  And  young  Serbo,  nephew  of  Roger, 
conquered  30,000  Arabs,  attacking  them  with  only  one 
hundred  knights. 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  55 

It  was  one  of  Jane's  pet  romances,  the  career  of  this 
landless  youngest  son  of  a  small  French  noble  carving 
out  with  sword  and  brain  "the  most  brilliant  of  Euro- 
pean Kingdoms,"  leaving  a  dominion  to  his  successors 
with  power  stretching  far  beyond  Sicily  as  long  as  they 
governed  upon  his  principles.  The  young  conqueror, 
unspoiled  by  his  dazzling  success,  ruled  with  justice, 
mercy,  and  genius,  making  Sicily  united  and  prosper- 
ous; the  freest  country  in  the  world  at  that  time;  the 
only  one  where  all  religions  were  tolerated,  where  men 
of  different  creeds  and  tongues  could  live  side  by  side, 
each  in  his  own  way;  each  governed  justly  and  liber- 
ally according  to  his  own  laws — French  statutes  for 
Normans,  the  Koran  for  Mussulmen,  the  Lombard 
laws  for  Italians,  and  the  old  Roman  Code  for  the 
natives. 

" Peripatetica,"  Jane  burst  out.  "Roger  must  have 
been  a  delightful  person — '  so  good,  so  dear,  so  great  a 
king!'  Don't  you  think  there  is  something  very  ap- 
pealing in  a  king's  being  called  'so  dear'?  It  is  much 
easier  for  them  to  be  'great.'  " 

"Normans  are  too  modern  for  me  now,"  said  Peri- 
patetica, whose  own  enthusiasm  was  commencing  to 
catch  fire.  "We  are  coming  to  the  spot  of  all  the 
Greek  beginnings,  where  their  very  first  settlement 
began — do  you  realize  that?" 

And  Jane,  who  had  been  hard  at  work  with  her  his- 
tories, could  see  it  clearly.  The  little  narrow  viking- 
like  boats  of  Theocles,  the  Greek  merchant,  driven  be- 
fore the  sudden  northeast  storm  they  could  not  beat 
up  against  nor  lie  to,  straight  upon  the  coast  of  this 
dread  land.  It  had  always  been  a  land  awesome  and 
mysterious  to  the  Greeks.  They  had  imagined  half 


56  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

the  dramas  of  their  mythology  as  happening  there.  It 
was  sacred  ground,  too  sacred  to  be  explored  by  pro- 
fane foot;  and  was  besides  the  home  of  fierce  canni- 
bals, as  they  believed  the  Sikilians  to  be,  and  of  all 
manner  of  monstrous  and  half  divine  beings.  But, 
desperately  choosing  before  certain  destruction  at  sea 
the  unknown  perils  of  the  shore,  Theocles  had  rounded 
the  point  and  beached  his  boats  safely  on  that  strip  of 
yellow  sand  that  still  fringes  the  cove  below  Taormina. 
He  and  his  companions,  who  feared  to  adventure  no 
perils  of  the  treacherous  Mediterranean  in  their  tiny 
crafts,  but  feared  very  much  the  monsters  of  their 
imagination  in  this  haunted  country,  built  to  Apollo 
an  altar  of  the  sea-worn  rocks,  and  sacrificed  on  it 
their  last  meal  and  wine,  praying  him  for  protection 
and  help  to  save  them  from  the  Laestrygones,  from 
Polyphemus,  and  Hephaestos  at  his  nearby  smoking 
forge.  And  Apollo  must  have  found  it  good,  the  savour 
of  that  his  first  sacrifice  on  Sicilian  land,  for  straight- 
way succour  came.  The  natives,  drawn  down  from 
the  hillsides  in  curiosity  at  that  strange  fire  on  the  shore, 
were  not  raging  cannibals  but  peaceful  and  friendly 
farmer  folk,  who  looked  kindly  on  the  shipwrecked 
merchants,  and  gladly  bartered  food  and  rich  dark 
wine  for  Greek  goods.  And  through  the  days  of  the 
storm  the  Greeks  lived  unmolested  on  the  shore,  im- 
pressed by  all  that  met  their  eyes;  the  goodness  of  that 
"fairest  place  in  the  world."  When  at  last  came 
favourable  winds  and  the  Greeks  could  set  sail  again, 
Theocles  vowed  to  return  to  that  fertile  shore,  and  if 
Apollo,  protector  of  colonists  and  giver  of  victory, 
should  favour  his  enterprise,  to  build  there  a  shrine  in 
his  honour. 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  57 

But  in  Athens  none  would  believe  his  accounts  of 
the  rich  land  and  the  mild  natives.  They  said  that 
even  so  it  would  be  unwise  to  disturb  Polyphemus,  or 
to  run  the  risk  of  angering  Hephaestos,  and  that  it  was 
no  proper  site  for  a  colony  any  way!  Theocles  did  not 
falter  at  discouragement;  he  took  his  tale  to  other 
cities  and  over  in  Euboea  the  Chalcydians  were  won  to 
him.  After  the  oracle  of  Apollo  had  promised  them 
his  protection  and  all  good  fortune,  more  lonians  and 
some  Dorians  joined  them;  and  in  the  spring  they  set 
forth,  a  great  fleet  of  vessels  laden  with  all  necessary 
things  to  found  a  colony.  Theocles  piloted  them  to 
the  spot  of  his  first  sheltering;  and  there  on  the  red 
rock  horns  of  the  point  above  the  beach  they  founded 
Naxos,  and  built  the  great  shrine  of  Apollo  Archagates, 
founder  and  beginner,  with  that  wonderful  statue  which 
is  spoken  of  as  still  existing  in  the  time  of  Augustus, 
36  B.C. 

Naxos  itself  had  no  such  length  of  life.  It  knew 
prosperous  centuries  of  growth  and  importance,  of 
busy  commerce  and  smiling  wealth.  Then  came 
Dionysius,  Tyrant  of  Syracuse,  subdued  the  mother 
city  to  his  jealous  power  and  absolutely  exterminated 
it,  killing  or  carrying  off  into  slavery  all  its  population. 
"  The  buildings  were  swept  away,  and  the  site  of  Naxos 
given  back  to  the  native  Sikilians.  They  never  re- 
turned, and  for  twenty-two  centuries  no  man  has  dwelt 
there."  Of  all  the  shrines  and  palaces  of  Naxos  not 
one  stone  remains  upon  another,  not  one  surviving 
trace  to  identify  now  the  exact  site  even  of  the  Mother 
of  all  Greek  cities  in  Sicily.  But  from  her  sprang 
Taormina. 

Such  of  her  population  as  managed  to  escape  from 


58  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

Dionysius,  climbed  up  to  those  steep  rocks  above  and 
there,  sheltering  with  the  Sikilians,  out  of  tyrants' 
reach  in  that  inaccessible  mountain  nest,  Greek  and 
Sikilian  mingling  produced  a  breed  of  eagles  that  with 
fierce  strugglings  has  held  fast  its  own  on  those  peaks 
through  all  the  centuries. 

But  these  shipwrecks  and  temples  and  sieges  grew 
dim  behind  the  gritty  cloud  of  railroad  cinders.  Jane 
felt  the  past  melt  away  from  her  and  fade  entirely  into 
the  cold  discomfort  of  the  present.  She  subsided  into 
limp  weariness  in  a  corner  of  the  carriage,  incapable 
of  interest  in  anything,  while  Peripatetica's  spirits  re- 
vived, approaching  the  tracks  of  her  adored  Greeks, 
and  her  imagination  took  fire  and  burst  into  words. 

"Oh  those  wonderful  days!"  she  cried.  "If  one 
could  only  have  seen  that  civilization,  that  beauty,  with 
actual  eyes.  Jane,  wouldn't  you  give  anything  to  get 
back  into  the  Past  even  for  a  moment?" 

"No,  I'd  rather  get  somewhere  in  the  now — and  to 
breakfast,"  grumbled  Jane  with  hopeless  materialism 
as  she  vainly  tried  to  stay  her  hunger  on  stale  choco- 
late. So  Peripatetica  saw  visions  alone,  Jane  only 
knowing  dimly  that  miles  and  miles  of  orange  groves, 
and  of  a  sea  a  little  paled  and  faded  from  its  Calabrian 
blue,  were  slipping  by. 

A  box  of  a  station  announced  itself  as  Giardini- 
Taormina.  A  red-cheeked  porter  bore  the  legend 
"Hotel  San  Domenico"  on  his  cap;  and  much  luggage 
and  two  travellers  fell  upon  him.  But,  ah,  that  hoodoo! 

"  Desolated,  but  the  hotel  was  full.  Yes,  their  letter 
had  been  received,  but  it  had  been  impossible  to  re- 
serve rooms,"  said  the  cheerful  porter  heartlessly;  "no 
doubt  other  hotels  could  accommodate  them."  He 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  59 

didn't  seem  to  feel  his  cheerfulness  in  the  least  dimin- 
ished by  the  dismay  pictured  in  the  dusty  faces  before 
him. 

"  Oh,  well,"  said  Jane  bravely,  "  picturesque  monas- 
teries are  all  very  well,  but  modern  comfort  does  count 
in  the  end.  We  will  probably  like  the  Castel-a-Mare, 
and  if  we  don't,  there  is  the  Timeo." 

A  small  man  buzzing  "Metropole,  Metropole! 
Come  with  me,  Ladies — beautiful  rooms — my  omni- 
bus is  just  going!"  hung  upon  their  skirts,  but  they 
brushed  him  sternly  aside,  and  permitted  the  rosy- 
cheeked  porter  to  pile  them  and  the  mountains  of  their 
motoring-luggage  into  a  dusty  cab,  and  sing  "Castel- 
a-Mare"  cheerily  to  its  driver. 

"We  will  go  there  first  as  it's  nearest,"  they  agreed, 
"but  if  the  rooms  aren't  very  nice,  then  the  Timeo — 
the  royalties  all  prefer  the  Timeo." 

The  road  was  twisting  up  and  up  a  bare  hillside. 
They  roused  themselves  to  think  that  they  were  ap- 
proaching Taormina,  the  crown  of  Sicily's  beauty,  the 
climax  of  all  earthly  loveliness,  the  spot  apostrophised 
alike  with  dying  breath  by  German  poets  and  English 
statesmen,  as  being  the  fairest  of  all  that  their  eyes  had 
beheld  on  earth,  place  of  "glories  far  worthier  seraph's 
eyes"  than  anything  sinful  man  ought  to  expect  in  this 
blighted  world  according  to  Cardinal  Newman. 

But  where  was  it,  that  glamour  of  beauty?  Under- 
neath was  a  leaden  stretch  of  sea,  overhead  a  cold, 
clouded  sky,  jagged  into  by  forbidding  peaks.  The 
grey  road  wound  up  and  folded  back  upon  itself,  and 
slowly — oh  dear  departed  Berliet,  how  slowly! — up  they 
crawled.  It  was  all  grey,  receding  sea  and  rocky  hill- 
side, grey  dust  thick  on  parched  bushes  and  plants, 


60  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

greyer  still  on  grey  olives  and  cactus,  and  what — those 
other  dingy  trees — could  they  be  almonds! — those 
shrivelled  and  pallid  ghosts  of  rosy  bloom  shivering  in 
the  icy  wind  ?  Was  it  all  but  a  chill  shadow,  that  for 
which  they  had  left  home  and  roaring  fires  and  good 
steam  heat? 

A  furry  grey  head  surmounted  a  dust  wave,  a  donkey 
and  a  small  square  cart  emerged  behind  him,  follow- 
ing a  line  of  others  even  greyer  and  dustier.  Jane 
looked  listlessly  at  the  forlorn  procession  until  her  eyes 
discerned  colour  and  figures  dim  beneath  the  dirt  on  the 
cart's  sides,  and  underneath  fantastic  mud  gobs  what 
appeared  to  be  carvings.  Could  these  be  the  famous 
Painted  Carts,  the  "walking  picture  books"  of  a  ro- 
mance and  colour  loving  people,  the  pride  of  a  Sicilian 
peasant,  frescoed  and  wrought,  though  the  owner  lived 
in  a  cave — the  asses  hung  with  velvet  and  glittering 
bits  of  mirrors  though  he  himself  walked  in  rags? 
Was  everything  hoped  for  in  Sicily  to  prove  a  delusion  ? 

Up  whirled  the  San  Domenico  porter  in  a  cloud  of 
dust,  his  empty  carriage  passing  their  laden  one. 

"You  might  try  the  'Pension  Bellevue,'  ladies — 
beautiful  outlook — opposite  the  Castel-a-Mare,  if  you 
are  not  suited  there,"  he  called  out  as  he  rolled  by. 

They  thanked  him  coldly,  with  spines  stiffening  in 
spite  of  fatigue. 

A  pension?  Never!  If  they  could  not  have  ascetic 
cells  at  San  Domenico  or  the  flowery  loggias  of  the 
Castel-a-Mare,  then  at  least  the  chambers  that  had 
sheltered  a  German  Empress! 

Gardens  and  flowers  began  to  appear  behind  the 
dust;  a  wave-fretted  promontory  ran  into  the  sea  be- 
low, a  towering  peak  crowned  with  a  brown  rim  loomed 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  61 

overhead.  In  a  few  more  dusty  twists  of  road  the 
Castel-a-Mare  was  reached,  and  two  large  rooms  with 
the  best  view  carelessly  demanded. 

The  Concierge  looked  troubled  and  sent  for  a  bland 
proprietor.  Rooms?  He  had  none!  wouldn't  have 
for  a  month — could  give  one  room  just  for  that  very 
night — that  was  all! 

To  the  Timeo  then. 

More  dusty  road,  a  quaint  gateway,  a  narrow  street 
with  all  the  town's  population  walking  in  the  middle 
of  it,  a  stop  in  front  of  a  delightful  bit  of  garden.  A 
stern  and  decided  concierge  this  time — No  rooms  I 

In  the  mile  and  a  half  from  the  Castel-a-Mare  at 
the  end  of  one  promontory,  to  the  Internationale  at 
the  extreme  end  of  the  other,  that  dusty  cab  stopped  at 
every  hotel  and,  oh  lost  pride!  at  every  pension  in  the 
town  and  out.  The  same  stern  refusal  everywhere; 
no  one  wanted  the  weary  freight.  They  felt  their  faces 
taking  on  the  meek  wistfulness  of  lost  puppies  vainly 
trying  to  ingratiate  themselves  into  homes  with 
bones. 

"Does  no  one  in  the  world  want  us?"  wailed  Peri- 
patetica.  "Can't  any  one  see  how  nice  we  really  are 
and  give  us  a  mat  and  a  crust?" 

"The  Metropole  man  did  want  us,"  reminded  Jane 
hopefully.  " He  even  begged  for  us.  Let's  go  there!" 

That  had  been  the  one  and  only  place  passed  by, 
the  Domenico  porter  had  seemed  so  scornful  of  its 
claim  at  the  station,  but  now  they  would  condescend  to 
any  roof,  and  thought  gratefully  of  that  only  welcome 
offered  them  in  all  Taormina. 

How  pleased  the  little  porter  would  be  to  have  them 
coming  to  his  beautiful  rooms  after  all!  Their  meek 


62  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

faces  became  proud  again.  They  looked  with  approv- 
ing proprietorship  on  the  waving  palm  in  front  of  the 
Metropole,  and  the  old  bell  tower  rising  above  it. 

Peripatetica's  foot  was  on  the  carriage  step  ready  to 
alight  and  Jane  was  gathering  up  wraps  and  beloved 
Kodak  when  out  came  a  languid  concierge  and  the 
usual  words  knelled  in  their  ears — "No  rooms!" 

They  refused  to  believe.  "  But  your  porter  said  you 
had." 

"Yes,  an  hour  ago,  but  now  they  are  taken." 

A  merciful  daze  fell  upon  Peripatetica  and  Jane.  .  .  . 

How  they  returned  to  the  "Castel-a-Mare"  and  got 
themselves  and  their  mountain  of  luggage  into  the  one 
room  in  all  Taormina  they  might  call  theirs  for  as  much 
as  a  night,  they  never  knew;  when  consciousness  came 
back  they  were  sitting  in  front  of  food  in  a  bright  din- 
ing-room, and  knew  by  each  other's  faces  that  hot 
water  and  soap  must  have  happened  in  the  interval. 

Speech  came  back  to  Peripatetica,  and  she  announced 
that  she  was  never  going  to  travel  more,  except  to  reach 
some  place  where  she  might  stay  on  and  on  forever. 
Jane  might  tour  through  Sicily  if  she  liked,  but  as  for 
her,  Syracuse  and  Girgenti  and  all  could  remain  mere 
words  on  the  map,  and  Cook  keep  her  tickets — if  she 
had  to  move  on  again  on  the  morrow,  she  would  go 
straight  to  Palermo  and  there  stay! 

Jane  admitted  to  congenial  feelings,  and  resigned  all 
intervening  Sicily  without  a  pang.  There  would  be  no 
place  in  inhospitable  Taormina  for  Persephone  to 
squeeze  into  any  way! 

They  went  to  question  the  Concierge  of  trains  to 
Palermo.  He  took  it  as  a  personal  grief  that  they 
must  leave  Taormina  so  soon.  "The  air  of  Palermo 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  63 

is  not  like  ours."  They  hoped  it  was  not,  as  they 
shivered  in  a  cold  blast  from  the  open  door,  and  put  it 
to  him  that  they  could  hardly  live  on  air  alone,  and 
that  Taormina  offered  them  nothing  more.  But  he 
had  something  to  suggest — furnished  rooms  that  he 
had  heard  that  a  German  shop-keeper  wished  to  let. 
Peripatetica  did  not  take  to  the  suggestion  kindly,  in 
fact  her  aristocratic  nose  quite  curled  up  at  it.  But 
she  assented  dejectedly  that  they  might  as  well  walk 
there  as  anywhere,  and  give  the  pkce  a  look. 

Through  the  dust  and  shrivelled  almond  blossoms 
they  trailed  back  into  town.  The  sun  was  still  be- 
hind grey  clouds  and  an  icy  wind  whipped  up  the 
dust. 

"  Too  late  for  the  almond  bloom,  too  early  for  warmth. 
What  is  the  right  moment  for  Sicily?"  murmured 
Peripatetica. 

The  mountains  with  their  sweeping  curves  into  the 
sea  were  undeniably  beautiful;  the  narrow  town  street 
they  entered  through  the  battlemented  gate  was  full 
of  gay  colour,  but  it  left  them  cold  and  homesick  for 
Calabria.  A  little  old  Saracen  palace,  with  some  deli- 
cate Moorish  windows  and  mouldings  still  undefaced, 
held  the  antiquity  shop  of  the  Frau  Schuler.  Brisk 
and  rosy  she  seemed  indeed  the  "trustable  person"  of 
the  Concierge's  description. 

Yes,  indeed,  she  had  rooms  and  hoped  they  might 
please  the  ladies.  Her  niece  would  show  them.  A 
white-haired  loafer  was  beckoned  from  the  Square,  and 
Peripatetica  and  Jane  turned  over  to  his  guidance. 
Behind  his  faded  blue  linen  back  they  threaded  their 
way  between  the  swarming  tourists,  children,  panniered 
donkeys,  and  painted  carts. 


64  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

Suddenly  the  old  man  vanished  into  a  crack  between 
two  houses,  which  turned  out  to  be  an  alley,  half  stair, 
half  gutter,  dropping  down  to  lower  levels.  Every- 
thing no  longer  needed  in  the  kitchen  economy  of  the 
houses  on  either  side  had  been  cast  into  the  alley — the 
bones  of  yesterday's  dinners,  vegetable  parings  of  to- 
day's, the  baby's  bath,  the  father's  old  shoes  lay  in  a 
rich  ooze  through  which  chickens  clucked  and  squab- 
bled. At  the  bottom  of  the  crack  a  high  wall  and  a 
pink  gateway  .  .  .  they  were  in  a  delicious  garden, 
descending  a  pergola  of  roses  and  grapes.  Violets  and 
freesias,  geraniums  and  heliotrope  spread  in  a  dazzle  of 
colour  and  sweetness  under  gnarled  olives  and  almonds 
and  blossoming  plums;  stone  benches,  bits  of  old 
marbles,  a  violet-fringed  pool  and  a  terrace  leading 
down  to  a  square  white  house,  a  smiling  young  Ger- 
man girl  inviting  them  in,  and  then  a  view — dazzling 
to  even  their  fatigued,  dulled  eyes. 

In  front  a  terrace,  and  then  nothing  but  the  sea,  700 
feet  below,  the  surf-rimmed  coast  line  melting  on  and 
off  indefinitely  to  the  right  in  great  soft  curves  of  up- 
springing  mountains,  a  deep  ravine,  then  the  San 
Domenico  point  with  the  old  convent  and  church  rising 
out  of  its  gardens.  On  the  left  the  ruins  of  the  Greek 
theatre  hanging  over  their  heads;  and  on  the  very  edge 
of  the  terrace  an  old  almond-tree  with  chairs  and  a 
table  under  it,  all  waiting  for  tea. 

Fortunately  the  villa's  interior  showed  comfortable 
rooms,  clean,  airy,  and  spacious.  But  the  terrace  set- 
tled it.  They  would  have  slept  anywhere  to  belong  to 
that.  No  longer  outcast  tramps  but  semi-proprietors 
of  a  villa,  a  terrace,  a  garden,  and  a  balcony,  they  re- 
turned beaming  to  the  friendly  Concierge. 


A   NEST  OF  EAGLES  65 

And  all  Taormina  looked  different  now.  The  bro- 
cades and  laces  waved  enticingly  at  the  "antichita's" 
doors,  old  jewels  and  enamels  gleamed  temptingly; 
mountains  rose  more  majestic,  the  sea  seemed  less  dis- 
appointingly kcking  in  Calabrian  colour.  .  .  .  And  as 
for  the  tourists,  so  disgustingly  superior  in  the  morning 
with  their  clean  faces  and  unrumpled  clothes,  assured 
beds  and  table  d'h6tes;  now,  how  the  balance  had 
changed!  They  were  mere  tourists.  What  a  superior 
thing  to  be  an  inhabitant,  with  a  terrace  all  one's 
own! 

Life  at  the  Villa  Schuler  was  inaugurated  in  a  pour- 
ing rain.  But  even  that  did  not  dim  its  charm;  though 
to  descend  the  Scesa  Morgana — as  the  gutter-alley 
called  itself — was  like  shooting  a  polluted  Niagara, 
and  the  stone  floors  of  the  villa  itself  were  damply 
chill,  and  American  bones  ached  for  once  despised 
steam  heat.  Yet  smiling  little  Sicilian  maids,  serving 
with  an  ardour  of  willingness  that  never  American 
maid  knew,  with  radiant  smiles  staggered  through  the 
rain  bearing  big  pieces  of  luggage,  carried  in  huge 
pitchers  of  that  acqua  calda  the  forestieri  had  such  a 
strange  passion  for,  and  then,  as  if  it  were  the  merriest 
play  in  the  world,  pulled  about  heavy  pieces  of  furni- 
ture to  rearrange  the  rooms  according  to  American 
ideas,  which  demanded  that  dressing-tables  should  have 
light  on  their  mirrors,  and  sofas  not  be  barriered  be- 
hind the  immemorial  German  tables. 

Maria  of  the  beaming  smile,  and  Carola  of  the  gentle 
eyes,  what  genius  was  yours?  Two  dumb  forestieri, 
who  had  never  learned  your  beautiful  tongue,  found 
that  they  had  no  more  need  of  words  to  express  their 
wants  than  a  baby  has  to  tell  his  to  knowing  mother 
5 


66  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

and  nurses.  Did  they  have  a  wish,  all  they  had  to  do 
was  to  call  "Maria!" — smile  and  stutter,  look  into  her 
sympathetic  face,  and  somehow  from  the  depths  of  their 
eyes  she  drew  out  their  desire.  .  .  . 

"Si,  si,  Signora!" 

She  was  off  and  back  again  with  a  smile  still  more 
beaming. 

"Questo?" 

Yes,  "questo"  was  always  the  desired  article! 

At  first  they  did  make  efforts  at  articulate  speech, 
and  with  many  turnings  over  of  dictionary  and  phrase- 
book  attempted  to  translate  their  meaning.  But  that 
was  fatal.  Compilers  of  phrase-books  may  be  able  to 
converse  with  each  other,  but  theirs  is  a  language  apart 
— of  their  own,  apparently — known  to  no  other  living 
Italians.  They  soar  in  cloudy  regions  of  politeness, 
those  phrase-books,  all  flourishes  and  unnecessary  com- 
pliments; but  when  it  comes  to  the  solid  substantiate 
of  existence  they  are  nowhere!  Towels  are  not  towels 
to  them,  nor  butter,  butter. 

At  first  two  trusting  forestieri  loyally  believed  in 
them,  and  book  in  hand  read  out  confidently  to  Maria 
their  yearnings  for  a  clean  table  cloth,  or  a  spoon.  But 
a  dictionary  spoon  never  was  a  spoon  to  Maria — dazed 
for  once  she  would  look  at  them  blankly  until  meaning 
dawned  on  her  from  their  eyes;  then  "ah!"  and  she 
would  exclaim  an  entirely  different  word  from  the  dic- 
tionary's, and  produce  the  article  at  last. 

But  then  according  to  Maria's  vocabulary  "qwsto?" 
"qui!"  were  the  only  really  vital  and  necessary  words 
in  all  the  Italian  language.  It  merely  depended  upon 
how  you  inflected  these  to  make  them  express  any 
human  need  or  emotion.  "Questo"  meant  every- 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  67 

thing  from  mosquito-bars  to  vegetables;  and  the  com- 
bination of  the  two  words  with  a  sprinkling  of  "si's" 
and  "non's"  were  all  one  needed  to  define  any  shade 
of  feeling — pride,  surprise,  delight,  regret,  apology, 
sadness.  From  the  time  Maria  brought  in  the  break- 
fast trays  in  the  mornings  to  the  hot-water  bottles  at 
night  it  rang  through  the  villa  all  day  long;  for  the  in- 
tricacies of  her  duties,  the  demands  of  the  lodgers, 
scoldings  from  the  Fraulein,  chatter  with  other  maids, 
"questo!  qui!"  sounded  near  and  echoed  from  the 
distance  like  a  repeated  birdnote. 

No  nurse  ever  showed  more  pride  in  a  precocious 
infant's  lispings  than  did  Maria  when  they  caught  up 
her  phrases  and  repeated  them  to  her — when  the  right 
words  to  express  the  arrangement  of  tub  and  dinner 
table  were  remembered  and  stammered  out.  She 
seemed  to  feel  that  there  might  be  hope  of  her  charges 
eventually  developing  into  rational  articulate  beings, 
and  "questo-ed"  every  article  about  to  them,  with  all 
the  enthusiasm  of  a  kindergartner. 

Next  morning  the  sun  had  come  out,  and  so  had 
^Etna.  There  it  suddenly  was,  towering  over  the  ter- 
race, a  great  looming  presence  dominating  everything; 
incredibly  high  and  white,  its  glittering  cone  clear  cut 
as  steel  against  the  blue  morning  sky,  rising  far  above 
the  clouds  which  still  clung  in  tatters  of  drapery  about 
the  immense  purple  flanks.  Enceladus  for  once  lay 
quiet  upon  his  fiery  bed;  no  tortured  breathings  of 
steam  floated  about  the  icy  clearness  of  the  summit. 
It  was  a  vision  all  of  frozen  majestic  peace,  yet  awe- 
somely full  of  menace,  of  the  times  when  the  prisoned 
Titan  turned  and  groaned  and  shook  the  earth  with  his 


68  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

struggles,  and  poured  out  tears  of  blood  in  floods  of 
burning  destruction  over  all  the  smiling  orchards  and 
vineyards  and  soft  green  valleys. 

Suddenly,  Germans  armed  with  easels  and  palettes 
sprang  up  fully  equipped  at  every  vantage  viewpoint. 
The  terrace  produced  a  fertile  crop  of  them,  solemnly 
reducing  the  wonderful  vision  to  mathematical  dabs  of 
purple  and  mauve  and  grey  upon  yellow  canvas.  One 
felt  it  comforting  to  know  that  even  if  ^Etna  never 
pierced  the  clouds  again  all  Germany  might  feast  its 
eyes  on  the  colored  snap  shots  then  being  made  of  that 
morning's  aspect  of  the  Great  Presence  amid  a  patron- 
ising chorus  of  "Kolossals"  and  "achs  reizends." 
But  once  seen,  it  remained  impressed  on  sense  and 
spirit,  that  vision — whether  visible  or  not.  It  was  al- 
ways with  one,  dominating  all  imaginings  as  it  did  every 
actual  circumstance  of  life  at  Taormina,  the  weather, 
the  temperature,  the  colour  of  every  prospect.  Though 
the  sky  behind  San  Domenico  might  be  a  blank  and 
empty  grey,  one  knew  it  was  there,  that  mysterious  and 
wonderful  presence.  And  when  it  stood  out,  a  Pillar 
of  Heaven  indeed,  all  clear  and  fair  in  white  garment 
of  fresh-fallen  snow,  it  was  still  a  menace  to  the  blos- 
soming land  below,  whether  from  its  summit  were  sent 
down  icy  winds  and  grey  mists  or  shrivelling  fire  and 
black  pall  of  lava. 

Equal  in  importance  with  this  vision  of  iEtna  was 
the  appearance  of  Domenica — both  events  happening 
in  the  same  day.  Domenica  too  began  as  a  bland  out- 
line. Small,  middle-aged,  and  primly  shawled;  a 
smooth  black  head,  gold  earrings,  and  a  bearing  and 
nose  of  such  Roman  dignity  and  ability  that  two  weary 
forestieri  yearned  at  once  to  put  themselves  and  their 


s    fig 

II 

CD     S 


s 

H     ? 


- 

U     « 


I 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  69 

undarned  stockings  into  the  charge  of  her  capable  little 
hands.  She  respectfully  asserted  her  willingness  to 
serve  them;  they  could  make  that  out — but  how  tell 
her  their  requirements  and  the  routine  of  the  service 
they  wished?  It  was  seen  to  be  beyond  the  powers  of 
any  phrase-book  or  even  of  Maria,  presiding  over  the 
interview  with  beaming  interest,  and  carefully  repeat- 
ing with  louder  tone  and  hopeful  smile  all  Domenica's 
words.  No  mutual  understanding  could  be  reached. 
They  gave  it  up,  and  regretfully  saw  the  shining  bkck 
head  bow  itself  out.  But  Domenica  had  to  be.  Their 
fancy  clamoured  for  her,  and  all  their  poor  clothes, 
full  of  the  dust  of  travel  and  the  rents  of  ruthless  washer- 
woman, demanded  her  insistently.  A  more  competent 
interpreter  was  found,  and  their  needs  explained  at 
length.  Domenica's  eyes  sparkled  with  willing  intelli- 
gence; she  professed  herself  capable  of  doing  anything 
and  everything  they  asked  of  her;  and  mutual  delight 
gilded  the  scene  until  the  question  of  terms  came  up. 
What  would  the  ladies  pay  ?  They  mentioned  a  little 
more  than  the  Frau  Schuler  had  told  them  would  be  ex- 
pected, and  waited  for  the  pleased  response  to  their 
generosity — but  what  was  happening  ?  The  grey  shawl 
was  tossed  from  shoulders  that  suddenly  shrugged,  and 
arms  that  flew  about  wildly;  fierce  lightnings  flashed 
from  the  black  eyes,  a  torrent  of  ever  faster  and  shriller 
words  rose  almost  into  shrieks. 

Peripatetica  and  Jane  shrank  aghast,  expecting  to  see 
a  stiletto  plunged  into  the  stolid  form  of  their  inter- 
preter, bravely  breasting  the  fury. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  they  cried. 

"Oh  nothing,"  smiled  the  interpreter,  "she  is  say- 
ing it  isn't  enough;  that  the  ladies  at  the  hotels  pay 


70  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

their  maids  more,  and  her  husband  wouldn't  permit 
her  to  take  so  little." 

Dear  me,  she  need  not!  they  certainly  would  not 
want  such  a  fury. 

The  fury  had  subsided  into  tragic  melancholy,  and 
subdued  after-mutterings  of  the  storm  rumbled  up  from 
the  reshawled  bosom. 

"She  says  she  will  talk  it  over  with  her  husband  to- 
night," said  the  gentle  interpreter  with  a  meaning  wink. 
"She  is  really  good  and  able;  the  ladies  will  find  her 
a  brave  woman." 

They  didn't  exactly  feel  that  bravery  was  needed  on 
her  side  as  much  as  on  theirs  after  that  storm,  but  they 
had  liked  no  other  applicant,  and  again  the  imposing 
nose  and  capable  appearance  asserted  their  charm,  and 
they  remembered  their  stockings.  Their  offer  still 
stood,  they  said,  but  it  must  be  accepted  or  declined  at 
once;  they  wanted  a  maid  that  very  evening.  Re- 
newed flashes — she  dared  not  accept  such  a  pittance 
without  consulting  her  husband.  .  .  .  Very  well,  other 
maids  had  applied,  expecting  less.  A  change  of  aspect 
dawned — she  would  like  to  serve  the  ladies,  would  they 
not  give  half  of  what  she  asked  for  ?  Consultation  with 
the  interpreter — ten  cents  more  a  day  offered  only — 
instant  breaking  out  of  smiles  and  such  delighted  bob- 
bings  and  bowings  as  she  departed  that  it  seemed  im- 
possible to  believe  that  furious  transformation  had  ever 
really  happened. 

They  felt  a  little  uneasy.  Had  they  caught  a  Tar- 
tar ?  Remembering  all  the  tales  of  Sicilian  temper  it 
seemed  scarcely  comfortable  to  have  a  maid  who  might 
draw  a  stiletto  should  one  give  her  an  unpleasing  order. 
They  awaited  the  beginning  of  her  service  a  bit  doubt- 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  71 

fully.  But  when  that  grey  shawl  was  hung  inside  the 
villa  door,  the  only  fierceness  its  owner  showed  was  in 
her  energy  for  work.  The  black  eyes  never  flashed 
again,  until  .  .  .  but  that  comes  later.  They  beamed 
almost  as  happy  and  instant  a  comprehension  of  all 
needs  as  Maria's.  And  her  capacity  for  work  was  ap- 
palling. At  first  they  watched  its  effects  with  mutual 
congratulations;  such  an  accumulation  of  the  dilapi- 
dations of  travel  as  was  theirs  had  seemed  to  them 
quite  hopeless  ever  to  catch  up  with,  but  now  the  great 
heaps  of  tattered  stockings  turned  into  neat-folded  pairs 
in  their  drawers,  under-linen  coquetted  into  ribbons 
again,  and  all  their  abused  belongings  straightened 
into  freshness  and  neatness  once  more.  Domenica's 
energy  was  as  fiery  as  Etna's  during  an  eruption,  only 
unlike  the  mountains  it  never  seemed  to  know  a  sur- 
cease. Dust  departed  from  skirts  instantly  at  the 
fierce  onskught  of  her  brushings;  things  flew  into  their 
places;  sewing  seemed  to  get  itself  done  as  if  at  the 
wave  of  a  magician's  wand.  Accustomed  to  the  dila- 
toriness  of  Irish  Abigails  at  home,  Peripatetica  and  Jane 
were  quite  dazzled  with  delight  at  first — but  then  in- 
credibly soon  came  the  time  when  there  was  nothing 
left  undone;  when  the  little  personal  waiting  on  they 
needed  could  not  possibly  fill  Domenica's  days,  and  it 
became  a  menace,  the  sight  of  that  little  grey-clad 
figure  asking  with  empty  hands,  "what  next,  Sig- 
nora?" 

"The  Demon,"  they  began  calling  her  instead  of 
Domenica,  and  felt  that  like  Michael  Scott  and  his 
demon  servant,  they  would  be  obliged  to  set  her  to 
weaving  ropes  of  sand,  the  keeping  her  supplied  with 
normal  tasks  seemed  so  impossible.  It  became  almost 


72  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

a  pleasure  to  find  a  gown  too  loose  or  too  tight,  that 
she  might  alter  it,  or  to  spot  or  tear  one,  and  as  for 
ripped  skirt  bindings  or  torn  petticoat  ruffles,  they 
looked  at  each  other  in  delight  and  cried  exultantly, 
"a  job  for  the  Demon!"  Tea-basket  kettles  to  scour 
they  gave  her,  silver  to  clean,  errands  to  do,  fine  things 
to  wash,  their  entire  wardrobes  to  press  out;  yet  still 
the  little  figure  sat  in  her  corner  reproachfully  idle, 
looking  at  them  questioningly,  and  sighing  like  a  fur- 
nace until  some  new  task  was  procured  her.  Desper- 
ately they  took  to  giving  her  afternoons  off,  and  in- 
variably dismissed  her  before  the  bargained  time  in  the 
evening.  But  still  to  find  grist  for  the  mill  of  her  in- 
dustry kept  them  racking  their  brains  unsuccessfully 
through  all  their  Taormina  days. 

Home  comforts  and  maid  once  secured  they  could 
turn  to  Taormina  itself  with  open  minds,  and  plunge 
into  a  flood  of  beauty  and  queernesses  and  history. 
Of  the  guide  books  some  say  that  Taormina  was  the 
acropolis  of  Naxos,  an  off-shoot  of  that  first  Greek 
town,  others  that  it,  like  Mola,  was  a  Sikilian  strong- 
hold long  before  the  days  of  the  Greeks.  Jane's  pri- 
vate theory  was  that  neither  Greeks  nor  Sicilians  had 
been  its  founders,  that  eagles  alone  would  ever  first 
have  built  on  that  dizzy  windy  perch! 

On  the  very  ridge  of  a  mountain  spine  with  higher 
peaks  overhanging,  Taormina  twists  its  one  real  street, 
houses  climbing  up  or  slipping  down  hill  as  best  they 
may,  all  clinging  tight,  and  holding  hands  fast  along  the 
street  to  balance  themselves  there  at  all.  Dark  stairway 
cracks  between  lead  up  or  down,  and  overhead  flying 
arches  or  linked  stories  keep  the  clasp  unbroken. 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  73 

Here  and  there  a  little  street  manages  to  twist  off  and 
find  a  few  curves  for  itself  on  another  level,  or  the 
street  widens  into  a  wee  square,  or  a  terrace  beside  an 
old  church  is  edged  with  a  stone-benched  balustrade 
where  ancient  loafers  may  sun  themselves  and  look 
down  at  the  tiny  busy  specks  of  fishing  boats  in  the  sea 
far  below. 

Every  hour  of  the  day  the  Street  is  a  variety  show 
with  the  mixed  life  passing  through  it,  and  acting  its 
dramas  there.  Flocks  of  goats  squeezing  through  on 
their  way  to  pasture;  donkeys  carrying  distorted  wine 
skins  or  gay  glazed  pottery  protruding  from  their  pan- 
niers; women  going  to  the  fountain,  balancing  slender 
Greekish  water  jars  on  their  heads;  the  painted  carts 
carrying  up  the  tourists'  luggage;  the  tourists  them- 
selves in  veils  and  goggles  bargaining  at  enticing  shop 
doorways,  or  peering  into  the  windowless  room  of 
Taormina's  kindergarten,  where  a  dozen  or  more  in- 
fants are  primly  ranged,  every  mother's  daughter  with 
knitting  pins  in  hand  and  silky  brown  curls  knotted  on 
top  of  head  like  little  old  women,  sitting  solemnly  in  the 
scant  light  of  the  open  door,  acquiring  from  a  gentle 
old  crone  the  art  of  creating  their  own  stockings. 
There  the  barber  strums  his  guitar  on  a  stool  outside  the 
"Salone"  door  while  he  waits  for  custom;  the  Polichi- 
nello  man  obstructs  traffic  with  the  delighted  crowds 
of  boys  collected  by  Punch's  nasal  chantings  and  the 
shrill  squeaks  of  "  II  Diavolo."  There  come  the  golden 
loads  of  oranges  and  lemons;  green  glistening  lettuces 
and  feathery  finochi;  bread  hot  from  the  bakers  in 
queer  twists  and  rings;  live  chickens  borne  squawk- 
ing from  market,  and  poor  little  kids  going  to  the 
butchers.  The  busy  tide  of  every-day  life  never  ebbed 


74  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

its  colourful  flow  from  the  beginning  of  the  street  at  the 
arch  of  one  old  gateway  until  its  end  at  the  arch  of  the 
other.  Buying  and  selling,  learning,  working,  and 
idling,  the  Present  surged  there,  but  a  step  aside  into 
any  of  the  backways,  and  one  was  instantly  in  the 
Past.  Old  women  spinning  in  doorways  with  the  very 
same  twirling  spindles  as  those  of  two  thousand  years 
ago.  The  very  same  old  women,  one  had  almost  said, 
their  hawk-like  dried  faces  were  so  unimaginably  far 
removed  from  youth,  from  all  moderness. 

The  very  names  of  the  streets  spell  history  and  drama. 
History  rises  up  and  becomes  alive. 

In  the  Street  of  Timoleon  one  hears  the  clank  of 
armour — the  Great  Leader  and  his  Corinthians  swing 
down  the  road.  Only  a  few  days  ago  they  had  landed 
at  the  beach  of  ruined  Naxos  in  answer  to  the  call  of 
Andrbmachus,  Taormenium's  ruler.  They  have  been 
warmly  entertained  at  his  palace,  have  there  rested, 
learning  from  him  of  the  lay  of  the  land  and  state  of 
affairs;  now  they  set  out  to  begin  the  campaign.  The 
staring  people  stand  watching  the  march  of  these 
strong  new  friends,  murmuring  among  themselves  in 
awestruck  whispers  of  the  portents  attending  the  set- 
ting forth  of  these  allies.  How  great  Demeter  and 
Persephone  herself  had  appeared  to  the  servitors  of 
their  temple,  promising  divine  assistance  and  protec- 
tion to  this  expedition  for  the  succour  of  their  island — 
a  rumour  too  that  Apollo  had  dropped  the  laurel 
wreath  of  victory  from  his  statue  at  Delphi  upon  Timo- 
leon's  head;  a  marvel,  not  a  rumour,  for  it  was  beheld 
with  very  eyes  by  some  amongst  themselves.  How  the 
ships  bringing  these  deliverers  had  come  in  through 
the  night  to  the  harbour  below  with  mysterious  unearthly 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  75 

fires  hovering  in  front  of  them  and  hanging  in  balls  at 
the  masthead,  to  light  them  on  the  way! 

In  the  midst  of  the  soldiers  is  a  taller  figure — or  one 
that  seems  so — a  face  like  Jupiter's  own,  of  such  majesty 
and  sternness  and  calm.  The  crowd  surges  and  thrills 
and  shouts  with  all  its  heart  and  soul  and  stout  Sicilian 
lungs. 

"Who  is  that?"  ask  the  children. 

"Timoleon!  Timoleon,  the  Freer!"  they  are  an- 
swered when  the  shouting  is  over.  "Remember  all 
your  life  long  that  you  have  seen  him." 

And  when  years  later  those  boys,  grown  to  manhood 
in  a  free  prosperous  Sicily,  hear  of  the  almost  divine 
honours  that  grateful  Syracuse  is  paying  to  her  adored 
deliverer,  of  the  impassioned  crowds  thronging  the 
theatre,  mad  with  excitement  at  every  appearance 
of  the  great  old  blind  man,  they  too  thrill  to  know  that 
their  eyes  too  have  seen  "The  Liberator,"  greatest  and 
simplest  of  men. 

It  is  the  Street  of  the  Pro-Consulo  Romano.  Here 
comes  Verres,  crudest  of  tyrants,  most  rapacious  of 
robbers.  The  people  shrink  out  of  the  way,  out  of 
sight  as  fast  as  may  be,  at  the  first  gleam  of  the  hel- 
mets of  the  Pro-Consul's  guard,  when  "carried  by 
eight  stalwart  slaves  in  a  litter,  lying  upon  cushions 
stuffed  with  rose  leaves,  clad  in  transparent  gauze  and 
Maltese  lace,  with  garlands  of  roses  on  his  head  and 
round  his  neck,  and  delicately  sniffing  at  a  little  net 
filled  with  roses  lest  any  other  odour  should  offend  his 
nostrils,"  the  sybarite  tyrant  is  borne  along,  passing 
the  statue  of  himself  he  has  just  had  erected  in  the 
Forum,  on  his  way  to  the  theatre. 

The  Street  of  Cicero;    it  is  only  necessary  to  close 


76  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

one's  eyes  to  see  that  lean,  long-nosed  Roman  lawyer. 
A  fixed,  silent  sleuth-hound  on  this  same  Verres'  track; 
following,  following  close,  nose  fixed  to  the  trail,  for 
all  the  cunning  doublings  and  roundings  of  the  fox, 
questing  all  over  Sicily,  gathering  everywhere  evidence, 
building  up  his  case,  silently,  inexorably;  until  at  last 
his  quarry  is  cornered,  no  squirming  tricks  of  further 
avail.  Verres  is  caught  by  the  throat,  exposed,  de- 
nounced; so  passionately,  that  as  long  as  man's  appre- 
ciation of  logic  and  eloquence  endures  the  great  lawyer's 
pleading  of  that  case  is  remembered  and  quoted. 

Children  are  playing  in  the  Via  Sextus  Pompeius, 
but  one  sees  instead  a  gleam  of  golden  armour,  of  white 
kilts  swinging  from  polished  limbs — the  proud  figure 
of  Pompey;  splendid  perfumed  young  dandy  who, 
the  fair  naughty  ladies  say,  is  the  "sweetest-smelling 
man  in  Rome." 

Here,  with  instinctive  climb  to  the  heights,  he  is  des- 
perately watching  the  surge  of  that  great  new  power 
flooding,  foaming,  submerging  all  the  world;  rising  up 
to  him  even  here,  the  bubbling  wave  started  by  that 
other  Roman  dandy,  the  young  man  Julius  Caesar, 
who  knotted  his  girdle  so  exquisitely.  .  .  . 

The  street  from  which  the  Villa  Schuler's  pink  door 
opened  was  that  of  the  Bastiones,  where  the  town's 
fortified  wall  had  once  been.  Corkscrewing  dizzily 
down  the  sheer  hillside  among  the  cacti  and  rocks  ran 
a  narrow  little  trail.  Jane  had  settled  it  to  her  own 
satisfaction  that  this  was  the  scene  of  Roger's  adventure 
when  besieging  Taormina,  then  Saracen  Muezza — last 
stronghold  on  the  East  coast  to  hold  out  against  him; 
as  it  had  two  hundred  years  ago  been,  one  of  the  last  in 
succumbing  to  the  Moslems. 


A  NEST  OP  EAGLES  77 

Roger  had  completely  surrounded  the  strong  pkce 
with  works  outside  its  walls,  and  was  slowly  reducing 
it  by  starvation.  Going  the  rounds  one  day,  with  his 
usual  reckless  courage  almost  unaccompanied,  he  is 
caught  in  a  narrow  way  by  a  strong  party  of  the  enemy. 
The  odds  are  overwhelming,  even  to  Normans,  on  that 
steep  hillside.  Roger  must  retreat  or  be  cut  down. 
For  attackers  and  pursued  the  only  foothold  is  the 
one  narrow  path.  Evisand,  devoted  follower  of  Roger, 
is  quick  to  see  the  advantage  of  that — one  man  alone 
may  delay  a  whole  host  for  a  few  important  minutes 
there,  and  he  offers  up  his  life  to  cover  his  master's 
escape.  Alone,  on  the  narrow  way  he  makes  a  stand 
against  all  the  Moslem  swarm,  with  such  mighty  wield- 
ing of  sword  that  it  is  five  minutes  before  the  crooked 
Moslem  blades  can  clear  that  impediment  from  their 
way.  Roger,  who  has  had  time  to  reach  safety  before 
the  brave  heart  succumbs  to  innumerable  wounds, 
dashes  back  with  reinforcements,  wins  the  day,  re- 
covers his  loyal  servitor's  body,  buries  it  with  royal 
honours,  and  afterwards  builds  a  church  in  memory  of 
this  preservation,  and  for  the  soul  of  his  preserver. 
And  Taormina,  yielding  to  Roger  and  starvation,  re- 
gains her  name  and  the  Cross.  .  .  . 

Picking  their  way  one  morning  up  through  the  pud- 
dles and  hens  of  their  own  alley-way,  Peripatetica, 
raising  her  eyes  an  instant  from  the  slime  to  look  at 
the  label  on  the  house  corner,  said : 

"  Who  could  have  been  the  Morgana  this  scandal  of 
a  street  ever  stole  its  name  from?  .  .  .  you  don't  sup- 
pose .  .  ." 

"What?" 

"Why,  that  it  could  have  been  the  Fata  Morgana? 


78  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

Her  island  first  appeared  somewhere  off  the  Sicilian 
coast." 

"Oh,  Peripatetica !  how  could  a  fairy,  lovely  and  en- 
chanting, ever  have  become  associated  with  this!" 

Peripatetica  had  a  fine  newborn  theory  on  her 
tongue's  tip,  but  ere  she  could  voice  it,  a  nervous  hen 
above  them  suddenly  decided  there  was  no  room  on 
that  road  for  two  to  pass  on  foot,  and  took  to  her  wings 
with  wild  squawk  and  a  lunge  straight  at  Peripatetica's 
face  in  an  attempt  to  pass  overhead.  Peripatetica 
ducked  and  safely  dodged  all  the  succeeding  hens  whom 
the  first  dame's  hysteria  instantly  infected  to  like  be- 
haviour. By  the  time  she  caught  her  breath  again  in 
safety  at  the  street's  level,  the  theory  was  lost,  but  another 
more  interesting  one  was  born  to  her  as  they  proceeded. 

"'Street  of  Apollo  Archagates,' — Jane,  do  you  see 
meaning  in  that?  The  Greeks  always  put  their  great- 
est temples  on  the  heights — Athens,  Girgenti,  Eryx, 
wherever  there  were  hills  the  Great  Shrine  was  on  the 
Acropolis.  Taormina  must  have  been  the  Acropolis 
of  those  Naxos  people — they  certainly  never  stayed  on 
the  unprotected  shore  below  without  mounting  to  these 
heights.  I  believe  Apollo's  temple  stood  up  here,  not 
below.  Here  they  built  it,  dominating  the  city,  shin- 
ing far  out  to  sea,  a  mark  for  miles  to  all  their  ships 
and  to  the  sailormen  worshipping  Apollo,  Protector  of 
Commerce." 

"No  one  has  ever  suggested  that,"  said  Jane. 

"What  if  they  haven't?  It's  just  as  apt  to  be  true, 
though  even  tradition  has  left  no  trace  of  it  now  but 
the  name  of  this  dirty  little  street.  I  for  one  am  going 
to  believe  it,  and  that  was  why  the  statue  survived  until 
the  time  of  the  Romans." 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  79 

And  so  it  was  that  every  step  they  took  stirred  up 
wraiths  of  myth  and  history.  Even  on  the  Street  in 
the  midst  of  all  its  humming  bustle,  rotund  German 
tourists  and  donkeys,  all  the  modern  life  would  sud- 
denly melt  away,  and  they  would  resurrect  old  St.  Elio, 
attired  only  in  chains  and  his  drawers,  kneeling  in 
front  of  the  Catania  gate,  exhorting  the  Byzantine  sol- 
diers to  cleanse  themselves  from  their  sins  before  de- 
struction came  from  the  Saracens  then  raging  like  mad 
wolves  outside  the  devoted  town's  walls,  in  a  fury  that 
it  alone — save  Rometta — of  all  Christian  Sicily  should 
still  hold  out  against  them.  Then  the  air  would  fill 
with  the  screaming  and  smugglings  of  those  old  fierce 
eagle  fights,  and  the  donkey  boys'  cries  of  "A-ah-ee!" 
would  change  to  the  fierce  triumphant  shouts  of  "  Allah 
Akbar!"  with  which  Ibrahim's  cruel  soldiery  finally 
broke  in  to  massacre  garrison  and  townsfolk. 

Although  Taormina  sat  apart  on  her  mountain  eyrie 
with  no  epoch-making  events  finding  room  on  her  perch 
to  happen,  the  stream  of  all  Sicily's  history,  from  first 
Greek  settlement  to  the  revolts  of  modern  days  against 
King  Bomba's  tyranny,  have  surged  around  and  through 
her.  An  American  living  in  Taormina  did  a  kindness 
to  her  native  cook,  for  which  in  grateful  return  the  cook 
insisted  on  presenting  her  a  quantity  of  old  coins,  which 
her  husband  had  turned  up  through  the  years  in  their 
little  garden.  Showing  them  to  the  Curator  of  a  Mu- 
seum, "Madame,"  he  said  to  the  fortunate  recipient 
of  the  gift,  "you  have  a  complete  epitome  of  all  Sicilian 
history  in  these  coins." 

All  the  different  races  and  dynasties  dominating 
Sicily  from  her  beginning,  all  the  great  cities  that  rose 
into  local  power  were  represented  in  these  treasure 


80  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

troves  from  the  silt  of  the  centuries,  dug  by  a  peasant 
from  the  soil  of  one  little  garden. 

It  was  the  Greek  theatre  which  first  revealed  the 
Sicily  of  their  dreams  to  Peripatetica  and  Jane;  con- 
soling for  the  vague  disappointment  of  those  first  days 
of  dust  and  rain  by  the  glamour  of  its  presentment  of 
the  loveliness  of  nature  and  the  majesty  of  the  past. . 

Greek  that  wonderful  ruin  still  essentially  is,  for  all 
its  Roman  remodelling  and  incrusting  of  brick.  Only 
the  Greeks  could  have  so  lovingly  and  instinctively 
combined  with  nature  and  seized  so  harmoniously  all 
nature's  fairest  to  enhance  their  own  creation.  The 
place,  the  setting,  the  spirit  of  it  is  Greek;  what  matter 
if  the  actual  material  shape  now  is  Roman,  with  the 
Greek  form  only  glimmering  through  like  a  body  of 
the  old  statuesque  beauty  cramped  and  hidden  under 
distorting  modern  dress?  Not  that  the  theatre's 
Roman  clothing  is  ugly — the  warm  red  brick,  contrast- 
ing with  the  creamy  marble  fragments,  has  an  undeni- 
able charm,  Greek  and  Roman  together.  It  is  an  ex- 
quisite ruin  of  human  conceivings,  contrived  to  have 
blue  sea  and  curving  shore  and  Etna's  snowy  cone  as 
the  background  of  the  open  stage  arches,  and  in  the 
foyer,  the  arcaded  walk  back  and  behind  the  top  tiers 
of  the  auditorium,  all  the  differing  panorama  of  beauty 
of  the  northern  coast  line. 

Nature  from  the  beginning  did  more  than  man  for 
the  building,  and  now  she  has  taken  it  back  to  herself 
again,  blending  Greek  and  Roman  in  binding  of  vine 
and  flower  and  moss;  twining  all  the  stone-seated  tiers 
into  an  herb  and  flower  garden,  and  putting  the  song 
of  birds  into  the  vaulted  .halls  of  the  Greek  Chorus. 

An  enchanting  place,  where  the  Past  seems  to  re- 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  81 

veal  itself  in  all  that  it  had  most  of  beauty  and  splen- 
dour. Peripatetica  and  Jane  thought  themselves  fortu- 
nate to  live  under  its  wings;  actually  in  its  shadow, 
and  so  be  on  intimate  calling  terms  at  any  hour  of  the 
day,  learning  its  beauty  familiarly  through  every  chang- 
ing transformation  of  light,  cool  morning's  grey  and 
glowing  noon's  gold,  fiery  sunsets,  blue  twilights,  and 
early  moonrise — mountains  and  sea  and  wide-flung  sky 
dissolving  magically  and  mysteriously  into  ever  differ- 
ent pictures. 

They  wandered  through  chorus  halls  and  dressing- 
rooms,  the  obscure  regions  under  the  stage  and  the 
dizzy  ones  on  top  of  it;  strolled  in  the  outside  arcade 
on  top  of  the  auditorium,  where  the  loveliness  of  the 
view  was  a  fresh  wonder  every  time  it  burst  on  them, 
sat  in  the  top  rows  and  the  bottom  ones  on  the  flowery 
sod  now  covering  all  the  seats,  looking  from  every 
angle  at  that  most  charming  of  marble  stage  settings 
and  most  wonderful  of  all  backgrounds,  trying  to 
imagine  the  times  when  the  surrounding  tiers  had  been 
filled  with  4,000  eager  spectators,  and  the  walls  had 
echoed  to  the  tragedies  of  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  and 
Euripides. 

Looking  wonderingly  at  the  curious  drains  and  holes 
and  underground  passages  below  the  stage,  they  won- 
dered if  jEschylus,  that  eminent  stage  manager  as  well 
as  poet,  had  not  himself  perhaps  contrived  some  of 
them  on  his  visit  to  Sicily,  to  introduce  new  thrills  of 
stage  effects  into  the  performances  of  his  tragedies  here. 
/Eschylus,  who  was  inventor  of  stage  realism,  first  to 
introduce  rich  costuming,  accessories,  and  stage  ma- 
chinery, the  mutter  of  stage  thunder,  shrieks,  and 
sounds  from  behind  the  scenes  suggestive  of  the  deeds 
6 


82  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

considered  too  shocking  to  happen  in  the  audience's 
sight — inventor  of  the  "  Deus  ex  Machina,"  that  oblig- 
ing god  popping  from  out  his  trap-door  to  divinely 
straighten  out  a  situation  snarled  past  natural  conclu- 
sion. 

As  one  sat  there  in  the  calm  splendour  of  the  setting 
of  earth  and  sky,  sun,  and  great  winds  streaming  over- 
head, it  became  easier  to  understand  the  spirit  of  the 
old  Greek  plays;  how  the  drama  had  been  to  them  not 
mere  amusement  but  almost  a  form  of  religion,  and  an 
expounding  of  their  beliefs,  an  attempt  to  "justify  the 
ways  of  God  to  man."  If  perhaps  such  settings  had 
not  instinctively  formed  the  differing  tendencies  of  their 
great  play-writers;  ^Eschylus  to  represent  suffering  as 
the  punishment  of  sin;  Sophocles  to  justify  the  law  of 
God  against  the  presumption  of  man;  and  in  these 
spacious  open-air  settings  if  the  great  rugged  element- 
ary simplicity  of  their  plays  had  not  been  necessary 
and  inevitable. 

"In  the  Greek  tragedy  the  general  point  of  view  pre- 
dominates over  particular  persons.  It  is  human  nature 
that  is  represented  in  the  broad,  not  this  or  that  highly 
specialized  variation.  .  .  .  To  the  realization  of  this 
general  aim  the  whole  form  of  the  Greek  drama  was 
admirably  adapted.  It  consisted  very  largely  of  con- 
versations between  two  persons  representing  two  op- 
posed points  of  view,  and  giving  occasion  for  an  almost 
scientific  discussion  of  every  problem  of  action  raised 
in  the  play;  and  between  these  conversations  were  in- 
serted lyric  odes  in  which  the  chorus  commented  on  the 
situation,  bestowed  advice  or  warning,  praise  or  blame, 
and  finally  summed  up  the  moral  of  the  whole." 

More  akin  to  an  opera  than  to  a  play  in  our  modern 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  83 

sense,  the  Greek  drama  had  as  its  basis  music.  The 
song  and  stately  dance  of  its  mimetic  chorus  being  the 
binding  cord  of  the  whole,  "bringing  home  in  music 
to  the  passion  of  the  heart  the  idea  embodied  in  lyric 
verse,  the  verse  transfigured  by  song,  and  song  and 
verse  reflecting  as  in  a  mirror  to  the  eye  by  the  swing 
and  beat  of  the  limbs  they  stirred  to  consonance  of 
motion." 

Sitting  in  the  thyme-scented  breeze  Peripatetica  and 
Jane  read  Euripides  until  they  seemed  to  become  a 
part  of  a  breathless  audience  waiting  for  his  tragedies 
to  be  performed  before  their  eyes,  waiting  for  the  first 
gleam  of  the  purple  and  saffron  robes  of  the  chorus, 
sweeping  out  from  their  halls  in  chanting  procession. 
And  it  would  all  seem  to  take  place  once  more  on  the 
stage  in  front  of  them,  that  feast  for  the  eye  and  ear 
and  intelligence  at  once.  It  became  clear  that  across 
such  great  unroofed  space  the  actors  could  not  rely  on 
"acting,"  in  our  sense,  for  their  results.  It  must  be 
something  bigger  and  simpler  than  any  exact  realism 
of  petty  actions;  play  of  facial  expression,  subtle 
changes  of  voice  and  gesture  would  be  ineffectually 
lost  there.  So,  though  at  first  the  stage  conventions  of 
a  different  age  seemed  strange  to  these  modern  specta- 
tors, the  actors  raised  above  their  natural  height  on 
stilted  boots,  their  faces  covered  by  masks,  their  voices 
mechanically  magnified;  yet  in  wonderful  effects  of 
statuesque  posings  the  meaning  came  clear  to  the  eye, 
and  the  chanting  intonation  brought  out  every  beauti- 
ful measure  of  the  rolling  majestic  verse  which  a  real- 
istic conversational  delivery  would  have  obscured.  So 
the  representation  became  "moving  sculpture  to  the 
eye,  and  to  the  ear,  as  it  were,  a  sleep  of  music  between 


84  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

the  intenser  intervals  of  the  chorus,"  and  the  specta- 
tors found  themselves  "without  being  drawn  away  by 
an  imitative  realism  from  the  calm  of  impassioned  con- 
templation into  the  fever  and  fret  of  a  veritable  actor 
on  the  scene,"  receiving  all  the  beautiful  lucid  thought 
and  sentiment  of  the  text,  heightened  by  the  accom- 
panying appeal  to  the  senses  of  perfect  groupings  of 
forms  and  colours,  of  swaying  dance,  and  song  and  re- 
citative, until  it  all  blended  into  one  perfect  satisfying 
whole — perhaps  the  most  wonderful  form  of  art  pro- 
duction that  has  ever  existed. 

And  then  some  German  tourist  would  scream,  "Ach 
Minna,  komm  mal  her!  's  doch  famos  hier  oben!" 
and  they  would  be  waked  from  their  day  dream  of  old 
harmonies  into  the  shrill  bustling  present  again. 

"It  is  like  all  really  great  fresco  painting,"  said  Peri- 
patetica  on  one  of  these  comings  back,  "  kept  in  the 
flat.  Anything  huge  has  to  be  treated  so  as  to  make 
its  meaning  tell;  it  has  to  be  done  in  flat  outline  to 
stay  in  the  picture,  to  make  the  whole  effective.  All 
the  great  imposing  frescoes  are  like  that;  when  the 
seventeenth  century  tried  to  heighten  its  effects  by 
moulding  out  arms  and  legs  in  the  round,  its  pictures 
dropped  to  pieces;  any  idea  it  was  trying  to  express 
became  lost.  One  is  conscious  of  nothing  but  the 
nearest  sprawling  realistic  limb  thrusting  out  at  one. 
Oh,  those  delicious  marvellous  Greeks!  everything 
that  is  beautiful  and  perfect  they  did  first,  and  any- 
thing good  that  has  ever  been  done  since  is  only  copy- 
ing them." 

Jane  had  a  deep  respect  for  the  Greeks  herself,  but 
she  sometimes  turned  against  too  much  laudation  o£ 
them. 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  85 

"Do  you  suppose  the  aesthetic  effect  of  their  trage- 
dies was  really  greater  than  that  of  a  Wagner  opera, 
well  given?  That  the  lament  for  Iphigenia  could  be 
more  deeply  thrilling  than  Siegfried's  funeral  march?" 

Peripatetica  almost  bounded  from  her  seat. 

"But  that's  just  it!"  she  cried.  "Wagner  operas 
are  a  revival  of  the  Greek  ideal!  the  only  modern  anal- 
ogy of  their  drama !  He  had  the  same  idea  of  painting 
on  a  huge  canvas  great  heroic  figures  in  the  flat,  keep- 
ing them  in  the  picture  without  rounding  out  into  petty 
realism.  And  he  has  attempted  exactly  what  they  did, 
to  present  his  dramatic  theme  in  a  mingling  of  music, 
poetry,  picture,  and  dance,  every  branch  of  art  com- 
bined!" 

"  That's  interesting,  and  perhaps  true,  my  dear,  but 
if  you  discourse  on  about  King  Charles'  head,  we  shall 
get  caught  by  that  shower  racing  down  the  coast. 
There  is  just  time  to  beat  it  to  home  and  Vesuvius!" 

Vesuvius  was,  after  Domenica,  their  greatest  acqui- 
sition, and  the  one  that  most  soothingly  spread  about 
an  atmosphere  of  home  comfort.  Until  he  came  life 
had  been  a  thing  of  shivers  and  sneezes,  of  days  spent 
in  ceaseless  trampings  to  keep  their  chilled  blood  in 
circuktion,  and  of  evenings  sitting  swathed  in  fur  coats 
and  steamer  rugs,  with  feet  raised  high  above  the  cold 
drafts  of  the  floor. 

Fireplaces,  or  any  means  of  artificial  heating  were 
unknown  to  the  villa.  They  had  waited  patiently  for 
the  Southern  sun  to  come  and  do  his  duty,  but  he  didn't; 
and  a  day  came  when  Jane  took  to  bed  as  the  only 
hope  of  warmth,  when  even  Domenica  sneezed  and 
said  it  was  "molto  freddo"  and  then  Peripatetica  sallied 
forth  determined  to  find  some  warmth  nearer  than 


86  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

jEtna.  "Vesuvius"  was  the  result  of  her  quest.  Not 
much  was  he  to  look  at  outwardly.  Small  was  his 
round  black  form;  oh,  pitifully  small  he  seemed  at  first 
view  to  those  whose  only  hope  he  was.  A  mere  rusty 
tin  lantern  on  three  little  feet,  he  looked — but  when  his 
warm  heart  began  to  glow  and  to  send  delicious  hot 
rays  percolating  through  the  holes  of  his  sides  and 
pointed  lid,  the  charms  of  his  fiery  nature  won  respect 
at  once.  He  made  his  small  presence  felt  incredibly, 
from  stone  floor  to  high  ceiling.  Shawls  and  coats 
could  be  shed,  feet  lowered  and  at  once  frozen  spines 
relaxed  into  long-forgotten  comfort. 

His  breath  was  not  pleasant  to  be  sure,  his  charcoal 
fumes  troubled  at  first,  but  when  a  Sicilian  oracle  had 
recommended  the  laying  of  sliced  lemons  on  his  head, 
all  fumes  were  absorbed,  he  breathed  only  refreshing 
incense  and  became  altogether  a  joy.  Every  day, 
except  on  rainy  ones,  when  his  company  was  called 
for  earlier,  he  made  his  appearance  at  six  of  the  even- 
ing— and  how  eagerly  the  sight  of  Maria  bearing  him 
in  used  to  be  waited  for!  Then  with  feet  toasting  and 
backs  relaxing  in  delightful  warmth,  Peripatetica  and 
Jane  sat  over  his  little  glowing  holes  with  quite  the 
thrill  and  comfort  of  a  real  hearthstone. 

Ardent  fire  worshippers  they  found  themselves  be- 
coming in  this  supposedly  Southern  land.  If  Perseph- 
one had  ever  been  as  cold  as  they,  they  doubted  if 
that  enlbvement  to  Pluto's  warm,  furnace-heated  realm 
could  have  been  so  distasteful  after  all! 

Paddling  out  in  the  rain  to  hotels  for  meals  was  at 
first  a  drawback  to  life  in  the  Villa  Schuler.  To  sit 
with  damp  ankles  through  the  endless  procession  of 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  87 

table  d'hdte  meals,  and  afterwards  have  the  odorifer- 
ous bespatterings  of  the  Scesa  Morgana  as  dessert,  was 
not  an  enjoyable  feature  of  local  colour.  Frau  Schuler 
was  implored  to  feed  her  lodgers. 

"But  we  are  simple  people;  our  plain  cooking  would 
not  satisfy  the  ladies,"  she  protested,  distressed.  But 
the  ladies  felt  that  a  crust  and  an  egg  in  their  own  sit- 
ting-room would  be  more  satisfying  than  all  the  tri- 
umphs of  hotel  chefs  out  in  the  wet.  And  to  bread 
and  eggs  they  resigned  themselves.  Instead  came  a 
five-course  banquet,  served  by  beaming  Butler  Maria 
in  a  dazzling  new  grass-green  bodice — soup  and  maca- 
roni, meat  and  vegetables,  perfect  in  seasoning  and 
succulence,  crisp  salad  from  the  garden,  and  with  it 
the  demanded  poached  eggs  which  were  to  have  con- 
stituted the  whole  dinner,  almond  pudding  with  a  won- 
drous sauce;  dates,  oranges,  sugary  figs  beaded  on 
slivers  of  bamboo,  mellow  red  wine.  It  seemed  a  very 
elastic  two  lire  which  could  cover  all  that,  as  Frau 
Schuler  said  it  did!  Truly  the  Fraulein  Niece  was  an 
artist.  Peripatetica  and  Jane  thereafter  dined  at  home 
in  tea  gowns  and  luxury — and  the  pudding  sauces  grew 
more  bland  and  wonderful  every  night.  Also  eggs  con- 
tinued to  give  originality  by  the  vagaries  of  their  ap- 
pearance. As  Peripatetica  said,  "they  just  ran  along 
anyhow,  and  jumped  on  at  any  course  they  took  a 
fancy  to!"  And  to  see  where  they  were  going  to  land 
—in  the  soup,  the  vegetables,  the  salad,  the  stewed 
fruit  of  dessert — or  what  still  other  and  stranger  com- 
panionships they  might  form,  lent  a  sort  of  prize- 
packet  excitement  to  each  succeeding  course.  Dinner 
at  the  Villa  Schuler,  with  little  Vesuvius  glowing  warm- 
ingly  through  all  his  fiery  eyes  and  steaming  out  spicy 


88  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

incense  of  lemon  and  mandarin  peel,  the  soft  low  lamp- 
light, the  gleam  of  Maria's  smile  and  green  bodice,  the 
blessed  remoteness  from  all  tourist  gabble,  was  truly  a 
cosy  function.  They  took  to  making  elaborate  toilets 
in  honour  of  it,  adding  their  Taormina  acquisitions  of 
old  lace  and  jewels  to  Maria's  round-eyed  amazement. 
When  Jane  burst  out  in  an  Empire  diadem,  and  Peri- 
patetica  not  to  be  outdone  donned  a  ravishing  lace  cap, 
their  status  as  good  republicans  was  forever  lost  in  the 
villa.  Maria  spread  the  tale  of  this  splendour  abroad, 
firmly  convinced  that  these  lodgers  were  incognito 
members  of  the  most  exalted  nobility  of  distant  "Nuova 
Yorka."  The  tongues  which  could  not  pronounce 
their  ha!rsh  foreign  names  insisted  on  labelling  them 
the  "Big  and  Little  Princess" — and  no  protests  could 
bring  their  rank  down  lower  than  "the  most  gentle 
Countesses,"  upon  their  washing-bills. 

It  amused  them  in  fine  weather  to  try  the  various 
hotels  for  lunch.  In  mid-town  was  the  Hotel  Victoria, 
the  haunt  of  artists  and  gourmets,  famous  for  its  food 
and  for  its  garden,  which  climbed  the  hillside  in  bloom- 
ing terraces  and  loggias,  all  stairways,  springing  bridges, 
and  queer  little  passages  leading  to  buildings  and 
courts  on  different  levels.  Peripatetica  and  Jane  wan- 
dered into  it  almost  by  accident.  They  noticed  the 
name  over  a  dingy  door  as  they  were  strolling  aimlessly 
one  day,  and  Peripatetica  remembered  having  heard 
of  a  picturesque  garden  within.  Penetrating  through 
empty  hall  and  up  various  winding  stairways  they 
came  to  a  charming  garden  court.  There  appeared 
the  proprietor,  and  in  Parisian  French  treated  their 
curiosity  as  a  boon  and  a  pleasure.  A  little  man,  the 
Padrone,  with  nothing  large  about  him  but  the  checks 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  89 

of  his  trousers  and  the  soft  black  eyes  which  turned 
upon  the  gay  colour  about  him  with  gentle  melancholy. 
He  did  the  honours  of  the  place  with  all  the  courtesy 
and  dignity  of  Louis  XIV  showing  Versailles.  When 
they  admired  the  aviary  of  Sicilian  and  tropical  birds, 
the  budding  roses  clambering  everywhere,  the  strange 
feathery-fringed  irises  like  gaudy  little  cockatoos,  the 
delicate  bits  of  Moorish  carving  and  arches  built  into 
the  hotel  walls,  he  accepted  all  their  enthusiasm  for 
the  charms  of  his  property  with  no  sign  of  pride,  but 
rather  with  the  pensive  melancholy  of  one  whose  soul 
was  above  such  things,  as  of  one  who  knew  the  hollow- 
ness  of  earthly  delights.  Courteously  he  exhibited 
everything,  taking  them  to  still  higher  and  more  glow- 
ing terraces  where  his  laden  orange  trees  were  bur- 
nished green  and  gold,  and  his  violets  sheets  of  deep- 
est, royalest  purple  underneath. 

A  pair  of  monkeys  lived  in  cage  up  there,  and  while 
the  Signor  deftly  fed  them  for  the  amusement  of  his 
visitors  he  warmed  up  into  caustic  philosophic  com- 
ment upon  human  and  monkey  nature,  comment  not 
unspiced  with  wit.  Peripatetica,  always  ready  for  phi- 
losophy, immediately  plunged  into  the  depths  of  her 
French  vocabulary  and  responded  in  kind.  The  dis- 
cussion grew  warm  and  fluent,  and  the  little  Padrone 
became  a  new  man.  With  kindling  eye  and  a  pathetic 
eagerness  he  kept  the  ball  rolling  in  polished  Voltairian 
periods,  intoxicated  apparently  with  the  joy  of  mental 
intercourse.  He  snatched  and  clung  to  it,  inventing 
new  pretexts  to  detain  them,  new  things  to  exhibit, 
while  the  talk  rolled  on. 

But  Peripatetica,  whose  next  passion  to  Philosophy 
is  Floriculture,  broke  off  to  exclaim  at  the  violets  as 


90  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

they  passed  a  bed  of  purple  marvels.  Emperors  they 
were  among  violets.  The  Padrone  immediately  prof- 
fered some,  setting  two  contadini  to  picking  more. 
Peripatetica  contemplating  gluttonously  the  wonderful 
spread  of  the  deep  purple  calyx,  the  long  firm  stems  of 
those  in  her  hand,  and  at  the  profusion  of  others  sweet- 
ening the  air,  cried  from  her  heart,  "Oh,  Monsieur, 
what  luxury  to  have  such  a  garden!  You  should  be 
one  of  the  happiest  creatures  in  the  world  to  be  able 
to  grow  such  flowers  as  these!" 

The  Padrone,  from  his  knees,  picking  more  violets, 
glanced  up,  and  gloom  fell  over  him  again. 

"Madame,"  he  inquired  bitterly,  "does  happiness 
ever  consist  in  what  one  possesses  of  material  things? 
Contentment,  perhaps — but  happiness?  Not  the  most 
beautiful  garden  in  the  world  can  grow  that,"  and  with 
dark  Byronic  mystery,  "Ah,  one  can  live  amid  bright- 
ness and  yet  be  very  miserable." 

They  parted  with  much  friendliness,  the  Padrone 
hoping  the  ladies  would  do  his  hotel  the  honour  of 
visiting  it  again.  Surely,  yes,  they  said;  they  would 
give  themselves  the  pleasure  of  lunching  there  some 
day.  .  .  .  Upon  that  it  seemed  as  if  his  gloom  grew 
darker,  but  he  implied  courteously  that  that  would  do 
him  too  much  honour,  but  if  they  did  venture  as  much 
he  would  do  his  best  to  content  them.  His  was  but  a 
rough  little  place,  but  it  had  been  wont  to  be  the  haunt 
of  artists  and  "they,  you  know,  are  always  'un  peu 
gourmet!'  " 

"What  do  you  suppose  is  the  story  of  that  man?" 
they  asked  each  other;  and  amused  themselves  in- 
venting romantic  pretexts  to  explain  his  air  of  blighted 
hopes  and  poetic  pain. 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  91 

Before  long  their  curiosity  impelled  them  to  try  the 
Victoria's  cuisine.  They  were  a  half  hour  before  the 
time.  No  guests  had  yet  gathered.  They  stood  again 
in  front  of  the  aviary,  but  no  polite  philosopher  made 
his  appearance.  A  little  yellow-haired  maid  in  a  frock 
as  brightly  purple  as  the  violets,  carrying  decanters 
into  the  empty  dining-room,  was  the  only  creature 
about.  The  sitting  room  offered  them  shelter  from 
the  wind,  and  for  entertainment  heaps  of  German 
novels  and  innumerable  sketches  of  Sicilian  scenery 
and  types,  which  they  hoped  the  Victoria's  artist  pa- 
trons had  not  given  in  settlement  of  their  hotel  bills. 
A  bell  rang,  and  people  streamed  in  until  every  seat  in 
the  clean,  bare  dining-room  had  its  occupant.  Not  the 
artists  Peripatetica  and  Jane  were  looking  for,  but 
types  fixed  and  amusing,  such  as  they  had  never  be- 
fore encountered  in  such  numbers  and  contrasts.  Rosy, 
bland  English  curates  and  their  meek  little  wives; 
flashy  fat  Austrians,  with  powdered  ladies  of  unappe- 
tizing look ;  limp  English  spinsters  of  the  primmest  pro- 
priety; seedy  old  men  with  dyed  moustaches  and  loud 
clothes,  diffusing  an  aroma  of  shady  gambling-rooms. 
Scholarly  old  English  professors;  and  Germans,  Ger- 
mans, Germans  of  all  varying  degrees  of  fatness,  shini- 
ness,  and  loud-voicedness,  but  all  united  in  double- 
action  feeding  power  of  knife  and  fork. 

An  expectant  hush  held  them  all  for  a  while  before 
empty  plates.  Then  the  little  purple-gowned  maid, 
and  a  sister  one  in  ultramarine  blue,  with  the  same 
brilliant  yellow  hair  knotted  on  top  of  her  head,  ap- 
peared with  omelettes.  Omelettes  of  such  melting  per- 
fection as  to  explain  the  solemn  expectancy  of  the 
waiting  faces. 


92  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

Followed  a  meal  in  which  every  course — fish,  vege- 
tables, meat,  and  salad,  in  a  land  where  the  tourist  ex- 
pects to  subsist  alone  on  oranges  and  scenery — was  of 
a  deliciousness  to  have  made  a  Parisian  epicure  com- 
pliment the  chef  of  his  pet  restaurant. 

The  Germans  were  explained ;  lovers  of  feeding  and 
of  thrift,  of  course,  they  had  come  in  their  hordes  to 
this  modest  Inn.  And  how  they  made  the  most  of  it! 
Back  they  called  the  little  maids  for  two  and  three 
helpings  of  each  delicious  pktter.  Food  was  piled 
upon  plates  in  mountains,  but  before  Peripatetica  and 
Jane  could  more  than  nibble  at  their  own  share,  the 
German  plates  would  be  polished  clean,  and  the  little 
maids  called  for  another  supply.  The  caraffes  of 
strong  new  Sicilian  claret  were  emptied  too,  until 
Tedeschi  faces  grew  very  red,  and  tongues  more  than 
ever  loud. 

Peripatetica  and  Jane  dared  not  meet  each  other's 
eyes.  Next  to  them  sat  an  elderly  maiden  lady  from 
Hamburg  "doing"  Sicily  without  luggage,  prepared 
for  any  and  every  occasion  in  black  silk  bodice  and 
cloth  skirt,  which  could  be  made  short  or  long  by  one 
of  the  mysterious  arrangements  of  loops  and  strings 
the  female  German  mind  adores.  With  maiden  shy- 
ness but  German  persistence  she  firmly  insisted  on 
human  intercourse  with  the  French  commercial  travel- 
ler across  the  table.  He  clung  manfully  to  the  tradi- 
tional gallantry  of  his  race,  though  the  Hamburgian's 
accent  in  his  mother  tongue  threw  him  into  wildest  con- 
fusion as  to  the  lady's  meaning.  When  he  confided 
his  wife's  confinement  to  bed  with  a  cold,  and  his  in- 
effectual struggles  to  get  the  proper  drugs  for  her  in 
Taormina,  the  German  lady  announced  the  theory 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  93 

that  violent  exercise  followed  by  a  bath  was  better  cure 
for  a  cold  than  any  drugs,  "  the  bath  the  main  point," 
she  said.  "The  exercise  and  the  transpiration  without 
that  being  of  no  use." 

"A  bath!  with  a  cold!  Not  a  complete  wash  all 
over?"  protested  the  startled  Frenchman. 

"Yes,  indeed,  one  must  wash  one's  self  entirely— 
though  it  might  be  done  a  bit  at  a  time — but  completely, 
all  over,  with  water  and  soap,"  insisted  the  German, 
which  daring  hygienic  theory  so  convinced  the  French- 
man that  its  propounder's  reason  must  be  unhinged 
that  stammering  and  trembling  he  gulped  down  his 
wine  and  fled  from  the  table  without  waiting  for  the 
sweets. 

All  this  time  Peripatetica  and  Jane  had  caught  no 
glimpse  of  their  friend,  the  Padrone.  They  wondered, 
but  decided  that  his  poetic  nature  soared  above  the 
materialities  of  hotel  keeping. 

The  meal  had  reached  the  sweet  course — a  pudding 
of  delectableness  no  words  can  describe.  It  inspired 
even  the  gorged  Germans  with  emotion.  Thoroughly 
stuffed  as  they  already  were  they  still  demanded  more 
of  its  ambrosia  and  the  purple-frocked  one  flew  back 
to  the  kitchen,  leaving  the  door  open.  .  .  .  Alas!  their 
philosopher  of  the  garden,  in  cook's  apron,  was  pour- 
ing sauce  on  more  pudding  for  the  waiting  maid! 

Ah,  poor  Philosopher !  This  the  secret  of  his  blighted 
being.  The  poet  driven  to  cooking-pots,  the  artistic 
temperament  expending  itself  in  omelettes  and  pud- 
dings for  hungry  tourists.  How  wonder  at  the  irony 
with  which  he  had  watched  the  monkeys  feed! 

Maria  and  Vesuvius  were  not  the  only  possessors  of 


94  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

ardent  temperaments  in  the  Villa.  Another  existed  in 
a  round  soft  ball  of  tan  and  white  fuzz. 

The  Puppy! 

He  of  the  innocent  grey  eyes,  black  nose  with  pink 
tongue-trimming,  and  the  most  open  and  trusting  heart 
in  the  world.  On  friends  and  strangers  alike  his 
smiles  and  warm  licks  fell.  He  bounded  into  every 
room  all  a-quiver  of  joy  to  be  with  such  delightful 
people  in  such  an  altogether  charming  world.  And 
never  could  it  enter  his  generous  thoughts  that  others 
might  not  equally  yearn  for  his  society;  that  Jane 
might  object  to  having  a  liberal  donation  of  fleas  and 
mud  left  on  the  tail  of  her  gown;  that  at  6  A.M.  Peri- 
patetica  might  not  be  enchanted  to  have  a  friendly 
call  and  a  boisterous  worry  of  her  slippers  all  over  the 
stone  floor;  or  Fraulein  might  prefer  the  front  of  the 
stove  entirely  to  herself  during  sacredest  rites  of  cook- 
ing. He  could  not  be  brought  to  understand.  He 
was  cheerfully  confident  that  every  one  loved  him  as 
much  as  he  loved  them,  and  that  nothing  could  possi- 
bly be  accomplished  in  that  family  without  his  valu- 
able assistance.  Many  times  a  day  loud  wails  rose  to 
heaven,  announcing  that  he  had  come  to  grief  in  the 
course  of  his  labours;  had  encountered  some  one's 
foot  or  hand,  or  had  some  door  shut  in  his  face;  but 
in  the  midst  of  grief  he  would  see  in  the  distance  some- 
thing being  accomplished  without  him — charcoal  being 
carried  in,  the  hall  swept,  or  the  garden  watered — and 
he  would  rise  from  his  tears  and  offer  his  enthusiastic 
assistance  once  more,  all  undaunted,  and  continue  to 
give  encouraging  chews  to  the  worker's  ankles,  and 
stimulating  barks  of  advice  entirely  undeterred  by 
being  called  "an  injurienza  puppy!" 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  95 

Peripatetica  claimed  that  his  grey  eyes  showed  that 
he  was  Norman  descent,  as  Jane  insisted  they  did  in 
all  the  grey-eyed  children  of  Taormina.  But  Frau- 
lein,  appealed  to  on  that  question,  said  he  was  of  the 
colley  race,  and  she  revealed  the  dark  and  dreadful 
destiny  laid  upon  him — that  he  was  to  grow  up 
into  a  fierce  and  suspicious  watch-dog;  to  live 
chained  on  the  upper  terrace,  a  menace  to  all  in- 
truders, a  terror  to  frighten  thieves  from  the  garden 
plums! 

And  alas  for  natural  bent  of  temperament  when  it 
must  yield  to  contrary  training.  The  grey-eyed  one's 
fate  soon  overtook  him.  Wild  and  indignant  wails 
and  shrieks  woke  Jane  one  sunny  morning,  and  con- 
tinued steadily  in  mounting  crescendo  all  the  while  she 
clothed  herself  in  haste  to  go  to  the  rescue.  Follow- 
ing the  wails  to  the  top  of  the  garden  she  found  the 
Puppy,  a  red  ribbon  around  his  soft  neck,  and  from 
that  a  string  attaching  him  to  a  pole.  Nearby  stood 
the  Fraulein  admonishing  him  that  it  was  time  his 
duties  in  life  should  begin,  and  he  must  commence 
to  learn  the  routine  of  his  profession  without  so  much 
repining.  In  spite  of  Jane's  protests  she  insisted  on 
leaving  him  there;  and  in  vain  all  that  quarter  of 
Taormina  rang  with  the  wails  of  protesting  indigna- 
tion that  welled  from  the  confined  one's  heart  in  the 
bewilderment  of  being  left  in  loneliness,  separated  from 
all  his  friends  and  their  doings.  Every  day  after  that 
he  had  to  undergo  his  hour  or  two  of  schooling  in  the 
stern  training  of  his  grim  profession.  Soft-hearted 
Jane  released  him  whenever  she  could,  but  Fraulein 
inexorably  put  him  back,  and  even  his  playfellow 
Maria  sternly  held  him  to  his  duties.  Between  times 


96  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

he  mixed  with  the  family  again  on  the  old  footing,  but 
it  was  pathetic  to  see  how  soon  nature  was  affected  by 
the  mould  into  which  it  was  pressed,  how  soon  he  ac- 
quired the  mannerisms  and  habits  of  his  profession — 
curbing  his  exuberance  of  sociability,  imposing  on  him- 
self a  post  on  the  door  mat,  when  strangers  appeared, 
confining  all  welcome  to  his  tail  end,  which  would  still 
wag  friendlily  though  head  did  its  duty  in  theatrical 
staccato  growls. 


In  Taormina  everything  happens  in  the  street. 
Houses  are  merely  dark  damp  holes  in  which  to  take 
shelter  at  night,  but  life  is  lived  outside  them.  Food 
is  prepared  in  the  street,  clothes  are  mended  there, 
hair  is  combed  and  arranged,  neighbours  gossiped  with, 
lace  and  drawn  work  made.  The  cobbler  soles  his 
shoes  in  the  street,  the  tinsmith  does  his  hammering 
and  soldering  there.  It  is  the  poultry  run  of  hens  and 
turkeys,  the  pasture  grounds  for  goats  and  kids,  the 
dance  hall  for  light-footed  children  to  tarantelle  in,  the 
old  men's  club,  the  general  living-room  of  all  Taor- 
mina. Peripatetica  and  Jane  found  endless  amuse- 
ment there,  though  they  seldom  tarried  in  town.  Like 
Demeter  they  wandered  all  day  in  meadow  and  moun- 
tain seeking  Persephone,  and  found  her  not.  Prepa- 
ration for  her  beloved  coming  Mother  Demeter  seemed 
to  be  making  everywhere;  grass  springing  green  when 
once  the  cold  rain  ceased,  and  carpets  of  opening  blos- 
soms spreading  in  orchards  and  fields  for  the  little 
white  feet  to  press.  Every  night  they  said,  "She  will 
come  to-morrow," — but  still  Demeter's  loneliness  dis- 
solved into  cold  tears  hiding  the  face  of  the  sun,  and 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  97 

the  chill  winds  told  of  nothing  but  ^Etna's  snow,  and 
the  Lost  One  did  not  return. 

But  though  they  searched  for  her  in  vain  in  the  set- 
ting of  sunshine  and  blossom  their  fancy  had  pictured, 
Peripatetica  and  Jane  found  much  else  on  their  ram- 
bles— idyls  of  Theocritus  still  being  lived,  quaint  little 
adventures,  bits  of  local  colour,  new  friends  and  old 
acquaintances  among  contadini,  animals  and  flowers, 
and  always  and  all  about,  the  Bones  of  the  Past. 
Everywhere  obscured  under  the  work-a-day  uses  of  the 
Present,  or  rising  out  of  them  in  beauty;  half  hidden 
among  flowers  in  lonely  fields  or  a  part  of  squalid  mod- 
ern huts,  they  stumbled  upon  those  remains  of  antiq- 
uity, debased  and  crumbled  and  inexplicable  often,  but 
beautiful  with  a  lost  strange  charm,  sad  and  haunting. 

Taormina  prides  herself  more  on  scenery  than  an- 
tiquities, but  they  found  many  of  the  latter  in  their 
scrambles  on  rough  little  mountain  trails,  learning  all 
sorts  of  charms  and  secrets  undreamed  of  by  luxuri- 
ous tourists  rolling  dustily  in  landaus  along  the  one 
high  road.  Theirs  was  an  unhurried  leisure  to  take 
each  day  as  it  came.  Without  plans  or  guides  they 
merely  wandered  wherever  interest  beckoned,  until 
gradually  they  learned  all  the  town  and  its  setting  of 
mountain  and  shore  by  heart. 

They  sallied  forth  untrammelled  of  fixed  destination, 
ready  to  take  up  with  the  first  adventure  that  offered 
— and  one  always  did  offer  to  adventurers  of  such  re- 
ceptive natures.  They  made  plans  only  to  break  them; 
for  inevitably  they  were  distracted  by  something  of  in- 
terest more  vital  than  the  thing  they  had  set  out  to  see. 

They  might  start,  staff  in  hand,  on  a  pilgrimage  to 
the  Madonna  of  Rocca  Bella,  whose  brown  shrine 
7 


98  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

nestled  dizzily  on  one  of  the  strange  peaks  shooting 
their  distorted  summits  threateningly  above  their  own 
Villa,  those  peaks  so  vividly  described  by  another 
Idle  Woman  in  Sicily:  "Behind,  wildly  flinging  them- 
selves upwards,  rise  three  tall  peaks,  as  of  mountains 
altogether  gone  mad  and  raving.  .  .  .  The  nearest 
peak  of  a  yellow-grey,  splintered  and  cleft  like  a  lump 
of  spar,  and  so  upright  that  it  becomes  a  question  how 
it  supports  itself,  is  divided  into  two  heads — one  thrust- 
ing itself  forward  headlong  over  the  town  and  crowned 
with  the  battlements  of  a  ruined  Saracenic-Norman 
castle;  the  other  in  the  rear  carrying  the  outline  of  a 
little  church,  and  the  vague  vestige  of  a  house  or  two; 
Saracenic-Norman  castle  and  church  (Madonna  della 
Rocca)  both  so  precisely  the  tint  of  the  rock  that  it  re- 
quires time  and  patience  to  disentangle  each,  and  not 
to  put  the  whole  down  as  a  further  evidence  of  moun- 
tain insanity."  .  .  . 

When  Jane  sat  herself,  muffled  in  furs  and  rugs,  to 
read  or  sew  in  one  of  the  quaint  tile-encrusted  arbours 
of  the  garden,  those  jagged  peaks  fell  out  of  the  sky 
overhead  so  menacingly,  coming  ever  nearer  and 
nearer  to  her  shrinking  head,  that  for  all  the  sweetness 
of  the  flowers  and  birds  she  never  could  stay  there  long, 
but  always,  panic-struck,  fled  to  the  bare  sea-terrace, 
and  the  prospect  of  calm  and  distant  ^Etna. 

But  to  go  back  to  Our  Lady  of  Rocca  Bella,  which 
Peripatetica  and  Jane  never  managed  to  see,  there 
were  so  many  distractions  on  that  path!  Did  they 
start  with  the  firmest  of  pilgrim  intentions,  a  new  gar- 
den opened  unexplored  paths  of  sweetness,  or  a  brown 
old  sea-dog,  Phrygian-capped,  smiled  a  "buongiorno" 
on  his  bare-footed  way  up  from  the  shore,  showed 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  99 

them  the  strange  sea  creatures  gleaming  under  the 
seaweed  in  his  basket,  and  enticed  them  down  to  the 
shore.  There  on  the  golden  beach  of  Theocles'  land- 
ing place,  they  embarked  in  a  heavy  boat  pulled  by 
their  friend,  and  another  old  gold-earringed  mariner, 
to  the  " grotte  molto  inleressante"  in  the  Isola  Bella. 
They  poked  their  heads  between  waves  into  coral  caves 
where  the  light  filtering  through  the  bright  water  was 
dyed  almost  as  intense  an  azure  as  in  the  famous  Capri 
Blue  Grotto,  and  the  whole  coast  line  of  mountains 
came  to  them  in  a  new  revelation  of  beauty  from  the 
level  of  wide-stretching  sea.  And  beside  the  queer 
bits  of  coral  presented  by  the  sea-dogs  as  souvenirs, 
they  carried  away  salt-water  whetted  appetites  of  won- 
derful keenness,  and  pictures,  bestowed  safely  behind 
their  eyes,  of  deliciously  moulded  mountain  sides  ris- 
ing straight  from  clear  green  seas,  of  wave-carved  fan- 
tasies in  sun-bathed  coral  rocks,  of  red  nets  being 
stretched  on  yellow  sands  by  bare-legged,  graceful 
fisher  folk;  memories  they  would  not  have  exchanged 
for  any  wide  map-like  vista  the  Madonna  could  have 
given  them  from  her  high-perched  eyrie. 

It  was  the  same  story  with  the  Fontana  Vecchia.  If 
they  had  persisted  in  reaching  its  clear  spring  they 
might  have  heard  the  nightingales  singing  in  the 
wooded  dell,  but  they  would  never  have  known  Car- 
mela  and  her  sunny  mountain  meadow. 

It  was  a  day  of  shifting  clouds  and  cold  winds.  Peri- 
patetica  was  depressed.  Her  energies  wilted  in  the 
cold,  and  she  had  only  gone  forth  to  walk  because  the 
salon  was  too  icily  vaultlike  for  habitation.  Jane  tried 
to  cheer  her  with  prospect  of  hot  tea  at  the  Fontana, 
but  her  spirit  refused  to  respond  to  any  material  com- 


100  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

forting.  She  complained  of  what  had  been  troubling 
her  for  some  time,  a  sense  of  feeling  a  mere  ghost  her- 
self in  these  Past-pervaded  spots;  a  cold  and  shiver- 
ing ghost  aimlessly  blown  about  in  the  wind,  pressed 
upon  by  all  the  thronging  crowds  of  other  ghosts  haunt- 
ing these  places  where  through  the  centuries  each  suc- 
ceeding throng  of  beings  had  struggled  and  laboured, 
laughed  and  suffered.  Living  among  ghosts  in  these 
days  of  idleness,  her  own  existence  cut  off  from  the 
real  living  and  doing  of  the  world,  from  the  duties  and 
responsibilities  of.  her  own  place  in  life,  from  the  warm 
clutching  hands  of  the  people  dependent  on  her,  she 
had  come  to  seem  to  herself  entirely  vague  and  in- 
effectual. She  felt  a  mere  errant,  disembodied  spirit, 
she  said,  and  it  was  a  bleak  and  dreary  feeling. 

Jane  said  she  thought  a  disembodied  spirit,  able  to 
soar  over  the  sharp  cobbles  of  that  road,  an  exceed- 
ingly enviable  thing  to  be  at  that  moment;  but  she 
quite  understood,  and  was  herself  affected  by  the  same 
sense  of  chill  aloofness  from  actual,  vital  human  living. 

And  then  they  saw  Carmela — a  little  old  Sibyl  twirl- 
ing her  distaff  at  an  open  gate  that  looked  out  on  the 
quiet  road.  Sitting  in  the  sun  with  cotton  kerchief, 
bodice,  and  apron  all  faded  into  soft  harmonies  of 
colour,  she  made  such  a  picture  through  the  arch  of  the 
gate's  break  in  the  dull  stone  wall,  with  the  green  of 
the  garden  behind  her,  that  they  stopped  a  moment  to 
look. 

"Buon  giorno" — the  picture  smiled,  her  little  round 
face  breaking  into  friendly  wrinkles.  She  rose  to  her 
bare  feet,  and  with  graceful  gesture  invited  them  in — 
wouldn't  they  like  to  see  the  farm  ?  she  asked.  There 
was  a  molto  bella  vista  beyond.  Always  welcoming  the 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  101 

unexpected  they  at  once  accepted,  and  found  them- 
selves passing  through  olive  and  orange  groves.  The 
property  was  not  hers,  their  hostess  explained;  she  was 
merely  a  servant;  it  all  belonged  to  a  molto  vecchia 
lady,  Donna  Teresa  by  name.  Though  owning  no 
part  of  it,  Carmela  pointed  out  the  old  vines,  the  thriv- 
ing newly  planted  young  vineyard,  the  grafts  on  the 
almond  trees,  with  proud  proprietorship. 

Donna  Teresa  made  her  appearance;  a  tiny  bent 
crone,  bare-footed  like  her  maid  and  dressed  in  cottons 
as  faded  if  not  as  patched,  but  showing  traces  of  a  re- 
fined type  of  beauty  in  the  delicate  features  of  her  old 
face  and  the  soft  fine  white  hair  curling  still  like  grape 
tendrils  about  her  well-shaped  head.  She  accepted 
her  maid's  explanation  of  the  strangers'  presence,  and 
proceeded  to  outdo  her  in  hospitality.  They  must  do 
more  than  see  the  vista — must  pick  some  flowers  too. 
With  cordial  toothless  chatter,  of  which  the  friendly 
meaning  was  the  only  thing  they  could  entirely  under- 
stand, she  led  through  the  farmyard  court  where  blue 
and  white  doves  cooed  on  the  carved  stone  well-head, 
and  a  solemn  white  goat,  his  shaggy  neck  hung  about 
with  charms  and  amulets,  attached  himself  to  the  party 
and  followed  down  the  stone  stairs  to  a  lower  terrace. 
There  was  a  view  entrancing  indeed,  also  a  strange 
little  old  round  building  resembling  a  Roman  tomb. 
Carmela  could  tell  no  more  than  that  it  was  cosa  di 
molto  antichita  and  very  useful  to  store  roots  in.  Under 
a  sheltering  wall  was  a  purple  bank  of  violets  to  which 
the  old  Donna  led  them  with  much  pride,  inviting  them 
to  pick  for  themselves.  When  they  did  so  too  mod- 
estly to  suit  her,  she  fell  on  her  knees  and  gathered 
great  handfuls,  thrusting  on  them  besides  all  the  oranges 


102  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

and  mandarins  they  could  carry,  until  her  lavishments 
became  an  embarrassment.  For  all  her  bare  feet  and 
poor  rags  there  was  that  in  the  grace  of  her  hospitality 
they  felt  they  could  not  offer  money  to.  All  they  could 
do  was  to  press  francs  into  the  maid's  hand,  offer  the 
Donna,  as  curiosities  from  distant  America,  the  maple 
sugar  drops  Jane  had  filled  her  pocket  with  before 
starting,  and  try  to  make  smiles  fill  the  gaps  in  thanks 
of  their  halting  Italian. 

Carmela  showed  redoubled  friendliness  from  the 
moment  America  was  mentioned.  She  still  clung  to 
them  after  her  mistress  bade  them  goodby  at  the  gate, 
and  offered  to  show  them  another  vista  still  more  beau- 
tiful. They  would  rather  have  continued  their  inter- 
rupted way,  but  the  little  round  face  falling  sadly 
changed  their  protestations  into  thanks,  and  she  trotted 
happily  beside  them,  smiling  at  their  compliments  on 
the  even  thread  she  spun  as  she  walked,  confiding  how 
much  it  brought  her  a  hank,  what  she  could  spin  in  a 
day,  and  that  Donna  Teresa  was  a  good  mistress,  but 
a  little  weakened  in  her  head  by  age. 

She  pattered  along,  her  bare  feet  skimming  care- 
lessly over  the  sharp-cobbled  road,  spindle  steadily 
whirling,  past  the  Campo  Santo,  where  at  the  top  of  a 
sudden  ravine  the  road  forked  and  strings  of  pan- 
niered  donkeys  and  straight,  graceful  girls  with  piles  of 
linen  on  their  heads  were  going  down  to  a  hidden 
stream  tinkling  below.  They  longed  to  follow,  but 
Carmela  took  them  on  around  a  curve,  through  a  door 
in  a  high  wall,  past  a  deserted  barn,  along  a  grassy 
path  under  almond  trees,  and  they  found  themselves 
in  a  spot  that  made  them  catch  breath  with  delight. 

The  crown  of  a  mountain  spur  dropped  in  terraced 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  103 

orchards  and  gardens  to  the  sea  below.  Taormina 
was  hidden  behind  intervening  heights.  Below,  an 
opal  sea  divided  Sicily  from  wraiths  of  the  Calabrian 
mountains  drifting  along  the  horizon,  and  curves  of 
yellow  sand  and  white,  surf-frothed  rocks  outlined  the 
far  indentations  of  the  Island's  mountainous  coast 
spreading  blue  and  rosy-purple  on  their  left.  Fringed 
with  blossoming  plum  and  yellow  gorse,  the  spur  on 
which  they  stood  dropped  sheer  to  the  river  ravine, 
and  above  still  towered  Mola  and  Monte  Venere. 

It  was  a  world  of  sun  and  colour  and  sweet  silence. 
The  cold,  moaning  wind  was  shut  off  by  the  heights 
behind  them,  and  turned  full  to  the  glowing  South,  a 
real  warmth  of  sun  bathed  the  sheltered  spot  and  had 
spread  a  carpet  of  flowers  of  more  brilliant  and  har- 
monious arabesques  than  any  of  Oriental  weaving. 
Of  purple  and  puce  and  gold,  coral  and  white  and 
orange,  of  blues  faint  and  deep,  of  rose  and  sharp 
crimson,  it  was  woven  exquisitely  through  the  warp  of 
young  spring  green.  Even  without  the  view,  nothing 
so  sweet  and  really  springlike  as  that  bit  of  mountain 
meadow  had  Peripatetica  and  Jane  yet  seen.  They 
cried  out  in  joy  and  sat  them  down  among  all  the  un- 
known bewitching  flowers. 

Carmela's  face  lit  up  at  their  appreciation.  She  too 
sat  down,  let  her  spindle  fall,  and  gazed  about  as  if  her 
eyes  loved  what  they  rested  upon;  then  looking  from 
one  strange  face  to  the  other: 

"You  are  really  from  America?"  she  asked,  and 
let  her  pathetic  little  story  pour  out.  Nine  children 
she  had  borne,  and  all  but  one  dead.  She  told  how 
that  one,  a  splendid  youth,  had  gone  to  America  three 
years  ago  to  make  a  fortune  for  himself  and  her,  and 


104  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

at  first  had  written  to  her  that  he  was  doing  well;  but 
for  two  years  she  had  spent  her  hard  earnings  to  have 
letters  written  to  him,  and  had  prayed  with  tears  at 
the  Madonna's  shrine,  but  for  two  long  years  now — no 
answer. 

Her  round  little  old,  yet  childlike,  face  fell  into 
tragic  lines.  With  work-scarred  hands  clasping  her 
knees  across  her  patched  apron  she  sat,  a  creature  of 
simple  and  dignified  pathos,  opening  her  heart  in  brief 
and  poignant  words  to  the  response  in  Peripatetica's 
eyes.  Among  the  blossoms  and  the  bees  the  three 
women  of  such  different  lives  and  experiences,  with 
the  barrier  of  a  strange  tongue  between  them,  came 
into  close  touch  for  a  moment  in  the  elementary  hu- 
manity of  that  pain  known  to  all  women — Goddess 
Demeter  and  ragged  peasant  alike — when  their  dearest 
has  gone  forth  from  the  longing  shelter  of  their  arms 
and  theirs  is  the  part  of  passive  loneliness  and  waiting. 

"Yes,  life  was  brutta"  said  Carmela  simply,  "but 
one  had  always  one's  work." 

Picking  up  the  spindle,  winding  again  her  even 
thread,  smilingly  she  bade  these  strange  friends  "a 
rivedercela,"  and  departed,  a  certain  tragic  dignity 
clinging  to  the  square  little  figure  going  sturdily,  yet 
with  head  drooping,  back  to  her  life  of  hard  and  lonely 
labour.  Whether  that  moment  of  sympathetic  inter- 
course had  meant  anything  to  her  or  not,  to  the  two 
idle  ones  that  trusting  touch  of  the  life  about  them 
meant  much.  It  pulled  them  out  of  the  world  of 
ghosts,  from  the  empty  sense  of  being  outside  of  any 
connection  with  other  lives,  and  by  that  contact  of 
living,  pitiful  drama  they  came  back  into  realities. 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  105 

For  all  the  tiny  extent  of  Taormina's  boundaries, 
the  discoveries  of  its  antiquities  seemed  never  ending; 
the  cella  of  a  Greek  temple  hidden  in  San  Pancrazio's 
church;  the  tiny  Roman  theatre,  a  section  of  its  pit 
and  auditorium  with  seats  still  in  perfect  rows  stick- 
ing out  from  another  old  church  whose  greediness  had 
only  succeeded  in  half  swallowing  it;  the  enormous 
Roman  baths  whose  old  pools  and  conduits  a  thriving 
lemon  orchard  is  now  enjoying;  the  Roman  pavement 
next  to  the  Hotel  Victoria;  that  bit  of  Greek  inscrip- 
tion hospitably  let  into  church  walls,  exciting  imagina- 
tion with  its  record  that  the  "  people  of  Tauromenium 
accord  these  honours  to  Olympis,  son  of  Olympis"  for 
having  gained  the  prize  in  horse  racing  at  the  Pythian 
games. 

The  wall  of  the  loveliest  garden  in  Taormina  is 
honeycombed  with  ancient  tombs.  The  slender  cy- 
presses, like  exclamation  points  emphasizing  its  rhythms 
of  colour,  have  their  roots  among  the  very  bones  of  an- 
tiquity. In  this  garden  Protestant  worship  has  suc- 
ceeded Catholic  in  the  old  Chapel  of  the  delicious  little 
Twelfth  Century  Convent  whose  cloisters  are  now  an 
English  lady's  villa — and  who  knows  in  how  many 
earlier  shrines  man's  groping  faith  has  prayed  in  this 
very  spot  ? 

All  over  Taormina  fragments  of  old  marbles  and 
carvings  and  columns  appear  in  the  most  unlikely 
places;  a  marble  mask  from  the  theatre  over  the  door 
of  a  modest  little  "Sarta"  in  a  back  alleyway,  bits  of 
porphyry  columns  supporting  the  steps  of  a  peasant's 
hovel.  The  traces  of  Norman  and  Saracen  embel- 
lishment are,  of  course,  even  more  numerous,  almost 
every  house  on  the  street  breaking  out  into  some  odd 


106  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

and  delicate  bit.  The  facade  of  the  palace  in  which 
dwelt  the  Frau  Schuler's  antiquity  shop  is  freaked 
with  charming  old  lava  inlays  and  queer  forked  "mer- 
luzzi"  battlements.  Forcing  one's  way  through  the 
chickens  into  its  courtyard,  one  finds  a  vivid  Fourteenth 
Century  relief  of  the  story  of  Eve's  creation,  tempta- 
tion, and  punishment  climbing  up  the  stone  stairway, 
and  an  inscription  "Est  mihi  i  locu  refugii"  which 
tradition  says  was  placed  by  John  of  Aragon  taking 
refuge  here  once  in  the  days  when  it  was  a  Palace  of 
the  Aragonese  Kings.  Beyond  that  inscription  with 
its  legend,  and  some  few  Spanish-looking  iron  bal- 
conies, the  Spaniard  has  left  no  trace  of  his  dominion 
in  Taormina.  The  Norman  printed  himself  on  churches 
and  convents,  but  it  is  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and 
above  all  the  Saracens,  who  have  stamped  themselves 
indelibly  upon  Taormina.  Moorish  workmen  must 
have  been  employed  by  their  conquerors  for  centuries 
to  build  them  palaces  and  convents,  baths  and  even 
churches.  And  the  Arab  blood  still  shows  strongly  in 
hawklike,  keen-eyed  faces  passing  through  Taormina's 
streets  as  haughtily  as  in  the  days  when  their  progeni- 
tors ruled  there  with  hand  of  iron  upon  the  dogs  of 
Christians. 

In  those  Moslem  days  much  liberty  in  the  practice 
of  religion  was  allowed  to  such  of  the  Christians  as  did 
not  show  the  cross  in  public,  read  the  gospel  loud 
enough  to  penetrate  to  Moslem  ears,  or  ring  their 
church  bells  "furiously."  How  often  in  Sicily  one 
wishes  that  last  reguktion  were  still  in  force!  They 
might  go  on  worshipping  freely  in  all  existing  churches 
and  convents,  though  to  build  new  ones  was  not  al- 
lowed. In  matters  of  religion  the  Arab  was  strangely 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  107 

liberal,  but  in  civil  matters  he  reduced  the  conquered 
people  to  a  sort  of  serfdom.  Christians  were  not  al- 
lowed to  carry  arms,  to  ride  on  horseback,  or  even 
donkeyback,  to  build  houses  as  high  as  the  Mussul- 
man's, to  drink  wine  in  public,  to  accompany  their 
dead  to  burial  with  any  pomp  or  mourning.  Chris- 
tian women  might  not  enter  the  public  baths  when 
Moslem  women  were  there,  nor  remain  if  they  came 
in.  Christians  must  give  way  to  Moslems  on  the  street; 
indoors  they  must  rise  whenever  a  man  of  the  con- 
quering race  came  in  or  went  out.  "  And  that  they 
might  never  forget  their  inferiority,  they  had  to  have  a 
mark  on  the  doors  of  their  houses  and  one  on  their 
clothes."  They  were  bid  wear  turbans  of  different 
fashion  and  colour  from  Moslems,  and  particular 
girdles  of  leather. 

Yet  many  good  gifts  these  Eastern  conquerors 
brought — introduction  of  silkworms  and  the  mul- 
berry, of  sugar-cane  and  new  kinds  of  olives  and  vines; 
new  ways  of  preserving  and  salting  fish ;  new  processes 
of  agriculture  and  commerce;  their  wonderful  methods 
of  irrigation;  the  clear  Arabic  numeration;  advance 
in  medicine,  astronomy,  mathematics,  all  sciences;  and 
even  "the  slaves  in  Sicily  under  the  Moslem  rule  were 
better  off  than  the  Italian  popuktions  of  the  mainland 
under  the  Lombards  and  Franks." 


Jane  and  Peripatetica  were  taking  tea  in  the  San 
Domenico  gardens — a  flowery  terrace  dizzily  flung  out 
to  sea,  and  almost  as  high  as  their  own.  There  is 
nothing  prettier  in  Taormina  than  that  garden;  tile- 
paved,  mossy  stone  pergolas  of  dense  shade  still  breath- 


108  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

ing  of  quiet  monkish  meditations;  open,  yet  sheltered, 
nooks  to  bask  in  the  sun,  and  the  loveliness  of  the  out- 
look on  ^Etna  and  his  sweeping  foothills,  and  the  milky- 
streaked  green  sea;  mats  of  fragrant  sweetness,  purple 
and  ivory,  of  violets  and  freesias;  royal  splash  of  bou- 
gain villa  against  the  buff  stucco  of  old  convent  walls; 
coast  steamers,  white  yachts,  and  tiny  black  fishing 
boats  far,  far  below,  the  only  hint  of  the  world's  bustle; 
here  in  the  garden  was  only  slumberous  quiet  and 
fragrant  peace. 

"On  his  terrace  high  in  air 
Nothing  doth  the  good  monk  care 

For  such  worldly  themes  as  these. 
From  the  garden  just  below 
Little  puffs  of  perfume  blow, 
And  a  sound  is  in  his  ears 

Of  the  murmur  of  the  bees 
In  the  shimmering  chestnut  trees. 
Nothing  else  he  heeds  or  hears. 
All  the  landscape  seems  to  swoon 
In  the  happy  afternoon." 

Little  has  been  changed  since  the  good  monk  really 
dozed  there.  The  charm  of  his  peaceful  days  still 
lingers  in  cloister  and  garden,  and  the  conventual  at- 
mosphere still  asserts  itself  in  spite  of  the  frivolous 
swarm  of  tourists,  who  leave  innovation  trunks  in  the 
stone-flagged  corridors.  But  that  same  tourist  sits  in 
the  monk's  painted  wooden  stalls,  has  a  beflowered 
little  shrine  and  altar  perhaps  opposite  his  own  bed- 
room door;  walks  under  saintly  frescoes,  hangs  his  hat 
on  the  Father's  carved  towel-frame  outside  the  Re- 
fectory door,  and  eats  his  dinner  under  pictures  of 
martyrdoms.  The  chapel  in  the  midst  of  the  modern 
caravanserai  is  still  the  parish  church,  the  vaulted  stone 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  109 

corridors  echo  to  the  solemn  boom  of  its  organ  many 
times  a  day — a  wrong  turn  on  the  way  to  the  dining- 
room  and  the  tourist  finds  himself  not  in  gas-lit,  soup- 
redolent,  salle-a-manger,  but  among  the  dim,  carved 
stalls,  taper-lit  altars,  and  incense-sweet  air  of  the 
chapel. 

It  was  the  one  place  which  ever  caused  Peripatetica 
and  Jane  to  think  ungratefully  of  their  villa.  When- 
ever they  wandered  through  either  of  the  vine-draped 
old  cloisters;  looked  up  the  delightfully  twisted  stone 
stairways,  and  along  mysterious  Gothic  passages,  they 
wished  that  they  too  might  have  had  a  "belonging" 
door  in  one  of  the  arches  of  that  quiet  incense-perfumed 
corridor,  such  sense  of  unhurried  calm  reigned  there; 
the  frescoed  saints  over  each  cell  door  looked  so  peace- 
fully benignant. 

"Jane,"  queried  Peripatetica,  "do  you  notice  that 
these  Saints  are  all  women? — a  gentle  kdy  saint  over 
every  Brother's  door !  even  where  no  living  woman  was 
allowed  to  penetrate  they  still  clung  to  some  memory 
of  the  Eternal  Feminine!" 

Tea  was  seeming  unusually  good  that  afternoon  after 
hours  passed  amid  the  excitements  and  wonderful  finds 
and  bargains  of  the  beguiling  antiquity  shops  of  Taor- 
mina's  main  street.  Now,  the  pot  drained  to  the  last 
drop,  the  last  crumb  of  bread  and  honey  eaten,  they 
sat  tranquilly  watching  the  shadows  lengthen  in  the 
garden. 

"This  is  the  only  really  peaceful  spot  in  Taormina," 
said  Jane.  "What  a  relief  to  escape  from  all  that  old 
overwhelming  Past  for  once  and  just  be  soothingly 
lulled  in  this  placid  monkish  calm.  I  know  nothing 
ever  happened  here  more  exciting  than  the  scandal  of 


110  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

some  fat  Brother's  unduly  prolonging  his  siesta  in  a 
sheltered  nook,  and  so  missing  Vespers." 

A  boy  appeared  at  her  elbow;  one  of  the  little  shy 
fauns  of  Von  Gloeden's  photographs.  He  pulled  a 
cactus  leaf  out  of  one  pocket,  a  penknife  out  of  another, 
and  trimming  off  the  cactus  prickles  tossed  the  leaf 
out  into  space  in  such  deft  way  that  in  graceful  curves 
and  birdlike  swoops  it  whirled  slowly  down  to  the  far 
bottom  of  the  cliff.  Jane  leaned  over  the  gratefully 
substantial  stone  parapet  and  watched,  fascinated,  as 
he  proceeded  to  send  yet  another  and  another  after  it 
in  more  elaborate  curves  each  time.  The  boy's  shy- 
ness melted  under  her  admiration  of  his  trick  and  the 
coppers  it  was  expressed  in;  he  showed  white  teeth  in 
much  merriment  when  she  too  attempted  to  toss  the 
green  discs  only  to  have  them  drop  persistently  with- 
out any  whirling.  He  began  to  chatter. 

"Yes,  it  was  very  high  that  cliff,  and  of  much  inter- 
est to  pitch  things  over  and  watch  them  fall.  In  the 
old  days  they  had  pitched  men  over  it — yes  indeed, 
prigionieri;  many  hundreds  of  them." 

"Oh  Peripatetica !  black  dramas  even  here!  what 
can  he  mean?" 

"The  insurgent  slaves  of  the  Servile  War,  perhaps. 
Their  whole  garrison  was  hurled  alive  over  some  cliff 
here — native  tradition  may  have  it  this  one." 

Jane  remembered.  Eight  hundred  men  thus  treated 
by  Publius  Rupilius,  Roman  Consul  in  132  B.C. 

The  dark  flood  of  old  cruelty  surged  back  to  her. 
Sicily  was  a  country  of  great  landowners  holding 
estates  of  eighty  miles  round  and  more;  working  them 
by  slave  labour;  owning  slaves  in  thousands.  Twenty 
thousand  slaves  was  not  an  exaggerated  number  for  a 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  111 

great  noble  to  own,  two  hundred  a  fair  allowance  for 
an  ordinary  citizen.  Two-thirds  of  Sicily's  population 
were  then  slaves. 

Of  course  the  human  live-stock  possessed  in  such 
indistinguishable  hordes,  like  cattle,  had  to  be  branded 
with  the  owner's  mark.  They  did  their  work  in  irons, 
to  be  safely  under  their  overseer's  power;  were  lodged 
in  holes  under  ground;  their  daily  rations  but  one 
pound  of  barley  or  wheat,  and  a  little  salt  and  oil. 
Against  atrocious  cruelties  they  revolt  at  last.  All  over 
Sicily  they  rise,  two  hundred  thousand  men  soon  find- 
ing arms  and  power  to  mete  to  masters  the  same  cruel- 
ties that  had  been  shown  them.  For  six  years  all  the 
might  of  Rome  cannot  crush  them,  but  eventually  her 
iron  claw  closes  in  upon  them — only  impregnable  Enna 
and  Taormina  still  remain  in  the  hands  of  the  slave 
army.  It  is  a  struggle  to  test  all  Rome's  mettle.  These 
slaves  too  are  of  the  eagle's  blood.  Men  free-born 
and  bred,  most  of  them;  Greeks  and  Franks  from  the 
mainland,  prisoners  of  war  or  of  debt.  Fiercely,  in- 
domitably, they  cling  to  their  rocky  eyries.  But  in 
Taormina  starvation  fights  direfully  against  them. 
There  was  not  one  grain,  one  blade  of  grass  even,  left. 
Still  the  garrison  clings  and  strikes  back  at  the  Romans. 
They  devour  their  own  children,  next  the  women,  then 
at  last  eat  one  another — but  still  hold  out. 

Commanus,  the  slave  commander,  weakens  and  tries 
to  escape  from  the  horrors.  He  creeps  alone  from  the 
city,  but  is  captured  and  brought  before  the  Consul. 
He  knows  what  methods  will  be  tried  to  make  him  give 
information  of  the  town's  condition — can  his  weakness 
hold  out  against  torture  ?  With  apparent  acquiescence 
he  appears  willing  to  answer  all  Roman  questions,  but 


112  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

bends  his  head  and  draws  his  cloak  over  it  as  if  shield- 
ing his  eyes  to  better  collect  his  thoughts.  .  .  .  Under 
the  cloak  he  grips  his  throat  between  his  fingers  and 
with  the  last  remnant  of  once  phenomenal  physical 
strength  crushes  his  own  windpipe,  and  falls  safely 
silent  at  the  Consul's  feet.  • 

But  the  horrors  of  Taormina  in  that  siege  are  too 
much  for  another  slave — a  Syrian.  He  betrays  the 
town  to  the  Romans  .  .  .  and  Publius  disposes  of  all 
the  remaining  garrison  over  the  edge  of  the  cliff. 


Shopping  is  an  important  part  of  a  stay  in  Taor- 
mina. Surely  no  other  street  of  its  length  anywhere 
in  the  world  has  so  many  beguilements  to  part  the 
tourist  from  his  coin.  The  dark  little  shops  spilling 
their  goods  out  upon  the  pavement;  things  so  bizarre, 
so  good,  so  cheap,  the  lire  of  the  forestieri  flow  away 
in  torrents.  Beautiful  inlaid  furniture;  lovely  old 
jewelry  of  flawed  rubies  and  emeralds  set  amid  the 
famous  antique  Sicilian  pearl-work  and  enamelling. 
Old  Spanish  paste  in  delightful  designs;  red  Catanian 
amber,  little  Roman  intaglios,  delicate  old  cameos, 
enamelled  orders;  necklaces,  rings,  pendants;  ear- 
rings in  odd  and  charming  settings;  delightful  old 
trinkets  in  richer  assortment  of  variety  and  quality  here 
than  any  other  place  in  Italy.  Old  Sicilian  thread  lace, 
coarse  but  effective,  in  shawls  and  scarfs  of  many 
charming  old  designs;  old  altar  lace  too  in  great  abund- 
ance; better  laces,  as  one  may  have  luck  to  find  them, 
or  to  be  on  the  spot  when  gleanings  from  churches  and 
convents  in  the  interior  are  brought  in — bundles  con- 
taining varied  treasures,  from  brocades  and  embroid- 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  113 

cries  and  splendid  kce  of  priestly  vestments,  to  drawn - 
work  altar  cloths  and  the  kce  cottas  little  choirboys' 
restless  arms  have  worn  sad  holes  in.  Churchly  silver 
too,  reliquaries  and  ornaments  and  old  medals,  abound 
in  Taormina  for  scarcely  more  than  the  value  of  the 
silver's  weight.  Old  coins  dug  up  in  its  gardens,  the 
old  porcelains  bought  from  its  impoverished  nobles; 
old  drawn- work,  on  heavy  hand-woven  linen,  still 
firmly  carrying  its  processions  of  marvellous  beasts  and 
birds  and  personages  in  wide  lace-like  bands.  Beasts 
conceived  by  the  same  imagination  that  evolved  the 
gargoyles  of  Gothic  cathedrals,  such  wonderful  mix- 
tures of  animal  and  bird  and  human  as  Adam  never 
named  in  Garden  of  Eden.  These  horned  birds  and 
winged  animals  processioning  around  churchly  altar 
cloths  are  old,  old  pagan  Siculian  luck  charms — pro- 
tectors against  the  evil  eye.  Peripatetica  and  Jane  in- 
stantly proceeded  to  combat  their  Hoodoo  with  valiant 
processions  of  fat  little  many-horned  stags  romping 
around  throat  and  wrist — and  of  all  the  many  exor- 
cisms they  had  tried  this  truly  seemed  the  most  effective! 

Taormina's  naive  native  pottery,  too,  drapes  the  out- 
side walls  of  shops  and  doorways  in  bright  garlands  of 
strange  shapes  of  fishes  and  fruits  and  beasts,  is  stacked 
in  shining  heaps  of  colour,  jugs  and  pots  and  pktters 
of  every  possible  form  and  design.  Some  of  it  reminis- 
cent of  Sevillian  pottery  in  ekborate  Renaissance  deco- 
ration, but  for  the  most  part  rough  little  shapes  of  cky, 
covered  with  hard  bright  gkze  and  no  two  ever  exactly 
alike  in  either  shape  or  tint.  The  favourite  model  being  a 
gay  Sicilian  Lady  Godiva,  riding  either  a  stag  or  a  cock, 
attired  proudly  in  a  crown  and  a  floating  blue  ribbon! 

Day  after  day,  all  through  March,  the  sun  moped  be- 
8 


114  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

hind  clouds,  the  wind  lashed  the  sea  against  the  rocks, 
and  milky  foam  bands  streaked  the  turbid  green.  Rain 
beat  on  the  Villa  windows,  and  even  through  them,  to 
the  great  amusement  of  Maria,  who  appeared  to  con- 
sider mopping  up  the  streaming  floors  a  merry  contest 
with  the  elements. 

But  when  the  rare  sun  burst  out  and  revealed  a 
fresh-washed  sky,  a  land  shimmering  through  thinnest 
gauze  of  mist,  or  the  moon  could  escape  from  the  clouds 
and  rise  behind  the  theatre  ruins  to  hang,  hugely 
bright  over  the  gleaming  sea  floor  so  far,  far  below,  it 
seemed  a  fair  world  all  prepared  to  greet  its  radiant 
returning  goddess. 

On  such  days  no  shop  could  beguile.  Even  the  old 
dames  weaving  towels  on  hand  looms  by  their  open 
doors,  always  so  ready  for  friendly  chat  with  these 
forestieri,  would  be  passed  with  only  a  smile,  for  the 
breath  of  the  fields  called  loudly  to  hillside  and  orchard, 
"where  all  fair  herbs  bloom,  red  goat- wort  and  endive, 
and  fragrant  bees-wort";  the  only  sound  breaking  the 
sunny  calm  being  the  notes  of  a  shepherd  boy  on  a 
neighbouring  hill,  piping  as  if  his  reed  flute  held  the  very 
spirit  of  youth,  the  bubbling  notes  sparkling  like  a  little 
fountain  of  joy  flinging  its  spray  on  the  spring  breeze. 
Or  on  a  day  like  this  to  wander  far  afield ;  or  else  in  the 
high  hillside  orchards  where  the  birds  sang  "Sicily! 
Sicily!  Sicily!"  or  called  mockingly  "Who  are  you? 
Who  are  you?" 

On  such  a  day  they  adventured  to  Mola  and  the 
heights  of  Monte  Venere's  peak  in  the  company  of 
those  brave  asinelli  Giovanino  and  Francesco,  and  in 
the  charge  of  Domenico,  Sheik  of  guides,  whose  par- 
ticular exploitation  they  had  long  ago  become. 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  115 

Loafing  in  the  fountain  square,  watching  the  women 
filling  jars  at  the  fountain,  and  speculating  as  usual 
over  the  history  of  its  presiding  deity  (who  as  St.  Tay- 
potem  is  the  local  genius  and  emblem  of  the  town,  a 
saint  utterly  unknown  to  churchly  calendar) — a  lady 
centaur,  and  a  two-legged  one  at  that,  uprearing  her 
plump  person  on  two  neat  little  hoofed  heels  raised 
high  above  the  four  archaic  beasts  spouting  water — 
Peripatetica  and  Jane  fell  a  prey  to  a  genial  Arab,  a 
beguiling  smile  wrinkling  his  dark  hawk-like  face. 
Wouldn't  they  like  a  donkey  ride?  The  best  donkeys 
in  all  Sicily  were  his — Domenico's — guide  No.  5,  be- 
loved of  all  tourists,  as  they  could  see  by  reading  his 
book.  A  dingy  little  worn  note-book  was  fluttered 
under  their  noses,  an  eager  brown  finger  pointed  to  this 
and  that  page  of  English  writing,  all  singing  the  praises 
of  Domenico  and  his  beasts  on  many  an  expedition. 
More  influenced  by  the  smile  than  the  testimonials 
they  promised  that  he  should  conduct  them  to  Mola. 
From  that  instant  Domenico's  wing  was  spread  over 
them  in  brooding  solicitude.  Yes,  the  weather  was  too 
threatening  to  ride  out  anywhere  that  afternoon,  but 
did  they  know  all  the  sights  of  the  town  ?  he  inquired. 
Had  they  seen  the  Bagni  Saraceni?  No,  they  ad- 
mitted. Oh,  that  was  mollo  interessante  and  close  at 
hand;  he  would  show  them!  Hypnotized  by  the  smile 
they  followed  meekly,  though  the  Bagni  turned  out  to 
be  the  Norman  Moorish  ruins  of  the  San  Stefano  Pal- 
ace with  which  they  were  already  familiar.  But  not 
as  it  was  shown  by  Domenico.  The  surly  old  conta- 
dina  in  charge,  bullied  into  offering  the  choicest  of  the 
oranges  and  flowers  growing  among  the  ruins,  the 
smile  gilding  all  the  dark  corners  of  antiquity  and 


116  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

lighting  up  the  vaulted  cellar  in  which  by  graphic  pan- 
tomime of  jumps  into  its  biggest  holes  they  were  shown 
exactly  how  the  Saracens  had  once  bathed,  much  as 
more  modern  folk  did,  it  seemed. 

After  that  days  came  and  went  of  such  greyness  and 
cold  wind  or  rain,  that  Domenico  and  his  donkeys 
attended  in  vain  at  the  pink  gateway  to  take  Peripate- 
tica  and  Jane  excursioning.  But  not  for  that  did  they 
lose  the  sunniness  of  the  smile.  Like  a  benevolent 
spider,  Domenico  was  to  be  always  lying  in  wait  to 
pounce  around  any  corner  with  friendly  greeting,  to 
give  them  the  news  of  the  town  in  his  patois  of  mixed 
Italian,  English,  and  pantomime;  to  suggest  carrying 
home  their  bundles  for  them  if  they  were  on  a  shop- 
ping tour,  to  point  out  an  antiquity  or  garden  to  in- 
spect if  they  seemed  planless,  or  a  lift  home  on  the 
painted  cart  whose  driver  he  had  been  enlivening  with 
merry  quips,  when  met  on  the  high  road  outside  town. 
And  once,  oh  blessed  time,  when  he  encountered  Jane 
at  the  Catania  gate,  her  tongue  hanging  out  with  thirst 
and  fatigue  after  a  long  mountain  climb,  he  haled  her 
straightway  into  a  friend's  garden  to  refresh  herself 
with  juicy  oranges  from  the  trees. 

Finally  the  long  waited-for  day  came,  when  not  a 
cloud  threatened  and  the  mountains  beckoned  through 
crystalline,  sunny  air.  So  Francesco  and  Giovanino 
laden  with  Peripatetica  and  Jane,  Domenico  and  a 
brown  young  hawkling  of  the  Domenican  brood  laden 
with  lunch,  they  climbed  upwards.  ALtna.  stood  out 
in  glistening,  freshly  renewed  snow  mantle,  icy  sharp 
against  the  most  perfect  of  blue  skies.  Taormina 
dropped  far  below,  a  tiny  huddled  human  nest  of  brown 
among  the  green,  green  hilltops.  Mola,  which  for  so 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  117 

long  had  loomed  far  over  their  heads  on  its  beetling 
crags,  now  too  sank  below.  The  pink  mountain  villa 
where  Hichens  had  written  "The  Call  of  the  Blood," 
the  vineyards  and  the  orchards,  all  dropped  away. 
Only  ^Etna,  high  and  white,  soared  against  the  sky, 
remote  and  inaccessible.  The  trail  grew  steeper  and 
steeper,  but  Francesco  and  Giovanino,  noble  pair, 
with  unbroken  wind  and  gloomy  energy  picked  their 
way  unfalteringly  among  the  rolling  stones,  and  both 
Domenicos,  like  two-legged  flies,  seemed  to  take  to 
the  perpendicular  as  easily  as  the  horizontal. 

Francesco,  tall  and  grey  and  of  a  loquacious  turn  of 
mind,  made  all  the  mountains  echo  to  his  voice  when- 
ever a  fellow  asinello  was  encountered  on  the  trail. 
Giovanino,  small  and  brown,  attended  strictly  to  the 
business  of  finding  secure  places  for  his  tiny  hoofs 
among  the  stones,  but  developed  two  idiosyncrasies 
rather  dismaying  to  his  rider.  Whenever  the  path  led 
along  a  precipice's  edge,  on  the  very  outside  edge  of  it 
would  his  four  obstinate  little  feet  go,  with  Jane's  feet 
dangling  horribly  over  empty  space;  whenever  it 
skirted  a  stone  wall  his  furry  sides  insisted  upon  rub- 
bing it  clingingly,  sternly  regardless  of  his  rider's  toes. 
The  path  ceased  being  a  path.  It  became  a  stairway 
climbing  up  the  mountains'  bare  marble  side  in  rough 
stone  steps  a  foot  or  more  in  height. 

"But  we  can't  ride  up  lhal!"  cries  the  appalled  Peri- 
patetica  in  the  lead.  In  vain  Domenico  assures  her 
that  she  can,  that  people  do  it  every  day.  She  looks 
at  its  dizzy  turns  and  insists  on  taking  to  her  own  feet. 
Jane,  having  acquired  a  reverential  confidence  in  Gio- 
vanino's  powers  after  their  mutual  tussles,  puts  more 
faith  in  his  head  and  knees  than  in  her  own,  and  goes 


118  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

on,  clutchingly.  Young  Domenico,  hanging  like  a 
balance  weight  to  Giovanino's  tail,  keeps  up  a  chorus  of 
"Ah-ees"  and  assurances  that  the  Signorina  need  have 
no  fear,  he  is  there  to  guide  her!  In  reality  he  knows 
that  his  small  person  could  no  more  interfere  with  the 
orbit  of  Giovanino's  movements  than  with  those 
of  the  planets,  but  also  that  there  is  no  more  need 
that  he  should — Giovanino's  grey  head  holds  a  per- 
fect chart  of  the  way,  with  the  safest  hoof-placings 
plainly  marked  out  on  it,  and  he  follows  it  im- 
perturbably. 

Travellers  to  Monte  Venere  do  not  know  much  of 
what  they  are  passing  the  last  forty  minutes.  They  are 
too  busy  wondering  whether  each  minute  will  not  be 
their  last — on  those  daunting  stairs  of  living  rock  and 
rolling  stones.  Breathless,  dizzy,  speechless,  they  at 
last  realize  a  firm  level  terrace  is  under  foot,  and  reel 
against  the  comforting  solid  walls  of  the  little  tratoria. 
The  donkeys  are  quite  unruffled  and  unheated,  less  de- 
jected than  when  they  started.  The  young  Domenico, 
who  has  pulled  himself  on  shuffling  small  bare  feet 
thrust  in  his  father's  heavy  boots  all  up  that  mountain 
wall,  is  as  unflushed  of  face,  unshortened  of  breath,  as 
if  he  had  come  on  wings!  Old  Domenico,  escorting 
an  exhausted  Peripatetica,  is  bubbling  faster  than  ever 
with  vehement  chatter.  He  cannot  understand  why 
his  charges  insist  on  rest,  on  holding  fast  to  the  solid 
house.  It  fills  him  with  surprised  distress  that  they 
will  not  go  on  to  the  top.  "The  view  over  all  Sicily 
awaits  them  there,  and  it  is  such  a  clear  day.  Cor- 
ragio!  only  one-half  hour  more!"  .  .  . 

But  Peripatetica  and  Jane  plant  their  feet  on  that 
little  level  platform  with  more  than  donkey  obstinacy 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  119 

— with  reeling  heads  they  look  out  into  the  great  blue 
gulfs  of  a  ir  and  over  the  green  ripples  of  mountain  tops. 
This  is  high  enough  for  them,  they  pant,  feeling  like 
quivering  earth-worms  clinging  to  the  top  of  a  tele- 
graph pole  and  invited  to  go  out  along  the  wires. 
Shivering  in  the  wind  which,  in  spite  of  sun,  is  icy 
keen  at  this  height,  they  proceed  to  eat  their  cold 
lunch;  the  tratoria  offering  only  tables  and  crockery, 
wine,  goat's  milk,  and  coffee  to  its  patrons.  Between 
two  infants  of  the  house  begging  for  tidbits,  three  skele- 
ton dogs  so  long  unacquainted  with  food  they  snatched 
greedily  even  at  egg  shells,  a  starved  cat,  and  the  two 
Domenicos,  who,  it  seems,  also  expect  to  lunch  on 
their  leavings,  Peripatetica  and  Jane  have  themselves 
no  heart  to  eat.  Wishing  they  had  brought  another 
asinello  laden  only  with  food,  that  all  the  inhabitants 
of  this  hungry  height  might  for  once  be  filled,  they 
divide  their  own  meal  as  evenly  as  possible  among  all 
its  aspirants  and  try  to  sustain  themselves  on  the  view. 
Peripatetica  looked  on  the  far  expanse  of  hills  and  sea 
below,  sourly  asserting  her  fixed  lowlander's  convic- 
tion that  mountains  are  only  beautiful  looked  up  to, 
and  that  a  bird's-eye-view  is  no  view.  But  when  a 
comforting  concoction  of  hot  goat's  milk  and  some- 
thing called  coffee  had  been  swallowed,  and  numbed 
fingers  thawed  out  over  the  tiny  fire  of  grapevine  prun- 
ings  in  the  tratoria  kitchen,  they  succumbed  to  Do- 
men  ico's  insistence  about  the  view  it  is  their  duty  to 
see,  and  climbed  higher. 

The  crest  of  Monte  Venere  is  a  green  knoll  rising 
above  rock  walls.  Around  and  below  it  enough  moun- 
tains to  fill  a  whole  world  roll  confusedly  on  every 
side.  They  felt  more  than  ever  like  earth-worms  too 


120  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

far  removed  from  friendly  earth,  and  stayed  only  to 
listen  to  the  pipings  of  a  curly-headed  goatherd  fling- 
ing trills  out  into  space;  while  Domenico,  pained  at 
their  indifference  to  his  vaunted  coup  d'etat  of  "bella 
vistas,"  but  benevolent  still,  clambered  about  like  a 
goat  himself,  gathering  for  them  the  "mountain  vio- 
lets" as  he  called  the  delicate  mauve  flowers  starring 
the  sod. 

So  soon  they  were  back  at  the  tratoria  that  Fran- 
cesco and  Giovanino  had  not  half  chewed  their  little 
handfuls  of  hay,  and  young  Domenico's  red  tongue 
was  still  delightedly  polishing  off  the  interior  of  their 
tin  of  potted  chicken,  while  the  lean  dogs  watched 
enviously,  waiting  for  their  chance  at  this  queer  bone. 
Another  personage  was  lunching  luxuriously,  stretched 
at  his  ease  on  the  steep  hillside,  a  large  sleek  white 
goat,  munching  solemnly  at  grass  and  blossom,  wag- 
ging his  beard  and  rolling  watery  pink-rimmed  eyes 
with  such  evangelical  air  of  pious  complacence  Peri- 
patetica  and  Jane  instantly  recognized  him  as  an  in- 
carnation of  a  New  England  country  deacon,  and  sat 
down  respectfully  to  pass  the  time  of  day  with  him. 

Going  down  even  Jane  takes  to  her  own  feet.  Slip- 
ping, sliding,  jumping,  the  worst  is  somehow  past  with 
bones  still  unbroken.  The  mountainside  is  yet  like 
the  wall  of  a  house,  but  Domenico,  with  more  cries  of 
"corragio,"  and  proverbs  as  to  those  who  "Va  piano, 
va  sano,"  urges  them  to  mount,  and  Jane,  quite  con- 
fident that  four  legs  have  more  clinging  power  than 
two,  is  glad  to  lie  back  along  Giovanino's  tail  while  he 
balances  himself  on  his  nose,  with  young  Domenico 
serving  as  a  brake  on  his  tail,  and  so  slides  and  hitches 
calmly  down  hill. 


A   NEST  OF  EAGLES  121 

Mola  is  a  climb  again,  the  narrow  path  twisting  up 
the  one  accessible  ledge  to  its  sharp  peak.  One  won- 
ders why  human  beings  ever  first  climbed  there  to 
build,  and  even  more  why  they  still  live  in  its  cramped 
buildings,  and  with  what  toil  they  can  find  ways  to 
squeeze  daily  bread  out  of  the  bleak  rocks.  Yet  be- 
fore the  first  Greek  colonists  landed  at  Naxos,  Mok 
was  already  a  town.  It  looked  down  on  infant  Taor- 
mina  when  the  Naxos  refugees  fled  to  its  heights.  It 
loomed  above,  still  Siculian  and  intact,  on  its  bare  un- 
assailable crags,  through  all  the  squabbles  and  scream- 
ings  below  of  the  different  eagle  broods  taking  posses- 
sion of  Taormina's  nest.  The  conqueror  who  tried 
to  take  Mola  had  usually  only  his  trouble  for  his  pains. 
Even  Dionysius,  with  all  Sicily  clutched  in  his  cruel 
hand,  failed  in  his  snatch  at  Mola.  His  attempt  to 
steal  into  it  by  surprise  one  dark  winter's  night  ended 
in  an  ignominious,  breakneck,  hurling  repulse  of  tyrant 
and  all  his  victory-wonted  veterans.  And  Mok  still 
lives  to-day.  All  its  huddled  houses  seem  to  be  in- 
habited, though  only  bent  old  men,  palsied  crones, 
bkck  pigs,  and  babies  are  to  be  met  with  in  its  steep 
narrow  alleys.  Domenico  said  scornfully  that  there 
was  nothing  to  be  seen  in  it,  but  led  the  way  to  the 
tiny  town-square  terrace  beside  the  church,  and  had 
a  brown  finger  ready  to  emphasize  all  points  of  inter- 
est in  the  spread  of  country  and  sea  stretching  below 
its  parapet.  Once  Mok  had  a  sister  town,  he  told,  on 
another  crag  across  the  valley;  but  ^Etna  opened  a 
sudden  mouth  and  kva  rivers  pouring  down  to  the  sea 
flowed  over  it  and  swallowed  it  completely.  Whether 
this  is  actual  history  or  Domenican  invention  remains 
in  doubt.  No  other  historian  mentions  the  lost  town. 


122  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

But  then,  as  Domenico  said,  there  is  ^Etna,  and  there 
the  lava  mound  still  black  and  ugly,  as  proof! 


Again  it  rained,  and  ^Etna  sulked  behind  a  cloudy 
mantle.  Vesuvius  worked  all  day  long,  yet  fur  coats 
were  a  necessary  house  dress.  The  poor  Demon  took 
the  influenza  and  coughed,  and  shivered  in  spite  of  her 
hot  energies;  turned  livid  yellow  and  feverish,  and  had 
to  be  sent  to  a  doctor.  Scarcely  able  to  hold  her  head 
up,  but  protesting  to  the  end,  she  gave  in  to  going 
home  to  bed  and  staying  there.  But  first  she  reap- 
peared, pale  but  proud,  with  a  fashionably  dressed 
young  lady  of  fourteen,  herfiglia  Adalina,  to  whom  she 
had  shown  and  told  everything,  and  who  could  do  all 
the  ladies'  service  quite  as  well  as  herself. 

Adalina  was  very  high  as  to  pompadour  and  equally 
high  as  to  the  French  heels  on  the  tight  boots  which 
finished  off  the  plump  legs  emerging  from  her  smart 
kilted  skirt — but  height  of  intelligence  was  not  in  her; 
none  of  her  mother's  quickness  and  energy  seemed  to 
have  passed  into  the  head  under  the  high  rolling  thatch 
of  hair.  Feet  were  Adalina's  strong  point,  and  she 
knew  it.  There  was  probably  not  another  such  grand 
pair  of  real  French  boots  as  hers  in  all  Taormina! 
So  her  life  consisted  in  showing  them  off.  She  ar- 
ranged Peripatetica's  and  Jane's  belongings,  and 
brushed  their  clothes,  as  Mother  had  shown  her,  but 
with  pirouettings  and  side  steps — one,  two,  three,  all 
the  best  dancing  positions — between  every  touch  of 
brush  or  laying  out  of  garment.  It  absorbed  so  much 
time  to  keep  her  feet  arranged  in  the  most  perfect  plac- 
ings  to  exhibit  pointed  toes  that  very  little  else  could  be 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  123 

expected  of  her  in  the  course  of  the  day.  She  opened 
her  mouth  wide  at  Peripatetica's  and  Jane's  broken 
babblings,  but  no  sense  from  them  ever  penetrated  her 
intelligence.  Maria  had  to  be  called  to  interpret  every- 
thing, and  usually  to  do  it  too.  A  charm  seemed  to 
have  departed  from  the  villa  with  no  Demon  to  keep 
them  comfortable  and  uncomfortable  at  once. 

"Why  should  we  wait  and  shiver  here  any  longer?" 
asked  Peripatetica.  "Persephone  is  surely  coming 
first  on  the  other  side  of  JEtna." 

"Why  should  we?    Let  us  start  on,"  said  Jane. 

Domenica  returned  to  them,  a  pale  yellow  Demon, 
but  bustling  as  ever,  too  late  to  affect  their  decision. 
Trunks  were  packed,  towering  packing-cases  stuffed 
with  their  Taormina  acquisitions.  Fraulein's  last  won- 
derful pudding  eaten,  ^Etna  seen  looming  vapory  white 
above  the  terrace  for  the  last  time,  Old  Nina  had  car- 
ried down  through  the  garden  from  the  well,  in  a  Greek 
jar  on  her  grey  head,  the  water  for  their  last  tub,  Maria 
had  peeped  her  last  "Questo,"  Frau  Schuler  and  her 
polite  son,  the  Fraulein,  Maria,  and  Carola,  had  all 
presented  fragrant  nosegays,  Adalina,  too,  with  pom- 
padour more  aggressive  than  ever,  appeared  to  offer 
them  violets  and  hint  a  receptivity  to  a  parting  douceur 
herself.  Every  one  was  bidding  them  regretful  fare- 
wells. Touched,  and  themselves  regretful  to  leave  so 
much  kindness  and  charm,  with  melting  heart  the  last 
goodby  of  all  was  said  to  Domenica,  and  her  wages  for 
the  last  two  weeks  pressed  into  her  palm. 

"You  have  served  us  so  well,  we  have  made  no  de- 
duction for  the  days  you  were  first  ill,  and  we  had  no 
one;  nor  for  the  days  when  we  had  your  little  girl  in- 
stead," said  Jane. 


124  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

Oh!  had  ^Etna  burst  into  eruption?  The  whole  smil- 
ing morning  landscape  was  darkened  by  the  wild  black 
figure  pouring  down  shrill  volleys  of  wrathful  Italian  on 
their  devoted  heads.  This  Fury  threatening  with 
flashing  eyes  and  wild  gesture  was  their  gentle  Domenica 
— now  a  demon  indeed! 

They  shrank  aghast  unable  to  catch  a  word  in  the 
rapid  torrent. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  they  cried  to  Frau  Schuler. 

With  Teuton  phlegm  she  dropped  a  word  into  the 
flood. 

"You  have  not  paid  her  for  the  hour  she  has  been 
here  this  morning." 

"  No,  because  we  have  paid  her  just  the  same  for  the 
days  on  which  we  had  no  one  and  the  ten  days  on  which 
we  had  only  that  stupid  child — and  have  given  the 
precious  Adalina  a  mancia  too.  But  good  gracious, 
we  will  pay  her  more  if  she  feels  that  way!" 

"Indeed,  you  must  not!"  said  the  Frau  briskly. 
"It  is  an  abominable  imposition.  She  has  been  much 
overpaid  now,  that  is  the  trouble,  she  thinks  you  easy 
game.  Listen,  my  woman,  and  shame  yourself,"  she 
turned  to  Domenica,  "you  disgrace  your  town  to  these 
good  Signorine,  who  have  acted  so  generously  to  you ! " 

The  raging  demon  looked  into  her  calm  face  and  at 
the  two  astounded  American  ones,  and  the  storm 
quieted  as  quickly  as  it  had  come  ...  in  an  instant's 
metamorphosis  she  was  again  the  amiable  little  person 
of  all  the  weeks  of  service,  saying: 

"Many,  many  thanks  to  the  ladies,  and  a  pleasant 
journey,  and  might  they  come  back  again  soon  to 
Taormina ! " 

She  snatched  Peripatetica's  coat  away  from  Maria, 


A  NEST  OF  EAGLES  125 

and  Jane's  kodak  from  out  her  hand,  and  bore  them 
off  to  the  carriage  with  all  her  usual  assiduous  energy. 
One  last  pat  to  the  puppy,  graduated  this  very  morn- 
ing to  real  collar  and  chain  attaching  him  to  new  huge 
kennel,  the  warring  friendliness  of  his  heart  and  the 
conscientious  effort  to  live  up  to  his  responsibilities 
struggling  more  pathetically  than  ever  in  his  grey  eyes, 
and  they  passed  up  the  pergok  for  the  last  time,  and 
out  of  the  pink  gate  to  continue  their  quest. 


CHAPTER   III 
ONE  DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS 

"Where  he  fell  there  he  lay  down  and  died." 

SIR  JOHN  LUBBOCK  tells  a  story — and  this  story 
teaches  an  obvious  lesson — of  certain  red  warrior  ants, 
who  capture  black  fellow  pismires,  and  hold  them  as 
slaves;  an  outrage  which  must  certainly  shock  all  true 
pismitarian  ants.  The  captors  become  in  time  so  de- 
pendent upon  their  negro  servants  that,  when  deprived 
of  their  attendants,  they  are  unable  to  feed  or  clean 
themselves,  and  lie  helplessly  upon  their  backs,  feebly 
waving  their  paws  in  the  air!  .  .  . 

Peripatetica,  having  but  recently  suffered  the  loss  of 
a  maiden  slave  of  a  dozen  years'  standing,  had  suffered 
a  like  moral  disintegration,  and  she  violently  lost  her 
taste  for  travel  whenever  it  became  necessary  to  move 
from  one  place  to  another,  attempting  to  deal  with  her 
packing  by  a  mere  series  of  helpless  paw-wavings,  most 
picturesque  to  observe,  but  which  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses were  highly  inefficient.  So  when  she  and  Jane 
dropped  down  and  down  the  zigzags  to  Giardini — each 

126 


ONE  DEAD  IN  THE   FIELDS  127 

of  those  famous  views  self-consciously  presenting  itself 
m  turn  for  the  last  time — the  light  figure  which  hurled 
itself  boldly  down  the  steeps  by  a  short  cut,  springing 
along  the  daring  descent  with  the  sure-footed  confi- 
dence of  a  goat,  proved  to  be  not  a  wing-heeled  Mer- 
cury conveying  an  affectionate  message  from  the  gods, 
but  merely  a  boy  from  the  villa  fetching  Peripatetica's 
left-behind  nail  brush,  hot-water  bottle,  and  um- 
brella. .  .  . 

From  Giardini  a  spacious  pkin  curves  all  the  way 
to  Syracuse.  This  broken  level  is  built  upon  a 
foundation  of  inky  lava  cast  out  from  Hephasstos' 
forge  in  ^Etna,  in  whose  wrinkled  crevices  of  black  and 
broken  stone  has  been  caught  and  held  all  the  stored 
richness  of  the  denuded  mountains  so  long  ago  stripped 
of  trees;  and  in  this  plain  grain  and  flowers  and  trees 
innumerable  find  food  and  footing.  Peripatetica,  bred 
in  deep-soiled,  fertile  fields  with  wide  horizons,  drew, 
as  they  passed  into  the  open  vistas,  deep  breaths  of 
refreshment  and  joy.  The  fierce,  soaring  aridity  of 
Taormina  had  oppressed  her  with  a  restless  sense  of 
imprisonment.  Her  elbows  were  as  passionate  lovers 
of  liberty  as  the  Spartans,  and  she  demanded  proper 
space  in  which  to  move  them.  What  she  called  a  view 
was  a  -view,  not  merely  more  mountains  climbing,  blind 
and  obstinate,  between  the  eye  and  the  landscape. 
Being,  too,  of  a  race  always  worshippers  of  Demeter — 
a  race  which  had  spent  generations  in  her  service, 
which  considered  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  the  only 
possible  occupation  of  a  gentleman,  and  all  other  busi- 
nesses the  mere  wretched  astonishing  fate  of  the  un- 
fortunate— she  rejoiced  loudly  and  fatiguingly  over  the 
blessedness  of  a  return  to  a  sweet  land  of  farms. 


128  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

"I  don't  call  that  Taormina  window-box-garden- 
ing on  tiny  stone  ledges  a  thousand  feet  up  in  the  air 
farming,"  she  scoffed. 

"If  your  tongue  was  a  spade  what  crops  you  would 
raise!"  sniffed  Jane. 

"Well,  I  raise  big  harvests  of  diversion  in  my  own 
spirit,"  retorted  the  unsuppressed  chatterer.  "Be- 
sides, it's  now  my  turn  to  talk.  You  have  done  a  lot 
of  elaborate  speechifying  about  Taormina.  I  made 
you  a  present  of  the  whole  jagged,  attitudinizing  old 
place,  and  for  the  moment  I  mean  to  flow  unchecked! 
You  needn't  listen  if  you  don't  like.  I  enjoy  hearing 
myself  speak,  whether  anyone  pays  the  smallest  atten- 
tion or  not." 

Which  was  why,  while  Jane  settled  down  com- 
fortably to  a  copy  of  Theocritus,  Peripatetica  contin- 
ued to  entertain  her  own  soul  with  spoken  and  un- 
spoken comments  as  to  a  certain  restful  letting  down 
of  tension  which  resulted  from  sliding  away  from  the 
dazzling,  lofty  Olympianism  of  Taormina  into  a  region 
Cyclopean,  perhaps,  but  with  a  dawning  suggestion  of 
coming  humanity.  For  here,  in  this  plain,  succeed- 
ing those  bright  presences  that  were  the  elementary 
forces  of  nature — forces  of  the  earth  and  sea  and  sun, 
of  fire  and  dew,  of  thunder,  wind,  and  rain,  of  the  shin- 
ing day,  and  the  night  with  its  changing  moon — first 
came  the  primitive  earth-spirits,  rude  and  rugged,  or 
delicate  and  vapourous.  Creatures  not  gods — no 
longer  immutable  and  immortal,  but  stronger,  older, 
greater  than  man,  who  was  yet  to  come.  Creatures 
partaking  somewhat  of  the  nature  of  both  gods  and 
men,  but  subject  to  transformation  into  stream  and 
fountain,  into  tree  and  flower;  very  near  to  the  earth, 


ONE  DEAD  IN  THE   FIELDS  129 

yet  swayed  by  human  passions,  by  human  sorrows  and 
joys. 

This  plain  was  the  home  of  nymph  and  oread,  of 
dryad  and  faun.  Here  had  the  Cyclops  and  the  Titans 
wrought — first  of  the  great  race  of  Armourers  and 
Smiths — under  the  tutelage  of  Vulcan,  shaping  the 
beams  of  the  heavens,  and  the  ribs  of  the  earth;  arm- 
ing the  gods  and  forging  the  lightning. 

Ulysses,  the  earliest  of  impassioned  tourists,  had  had 
dealings  on  this  very  spot  with  the  last  of  the  Cyclops. 
A  degenerate  scion  of  the  great  old  race,  as  the  last  of 
a  great  race  is  apt  to  be,  Polyphemus  had  sunk  to  the 
mere  keeping  of  sheep,  and  according  to  Ulysses'  own 
story  he  got  the  better  of  Polyphemus,  and  related, 
upon  returning  home,  the  triumph  of  his  superior  cun- 
ning, with  the  same  naive  relish  with  which  the  mod- 
ern Cookie  retails  his  supposed  outwitting  of  the  native 
curio  dealer.  Very  near  to  the  train,  as  it  ran  by  the 
sea's  edge,  lay  the  huge  fragments  of  lava  which  the 
blinded  Cyclop  had  cast  in  futile  rage  after  the  escap- 
ing Greeks.  He  was  a  great  stone-thrower,  was  Poly- 
phemus, for  further  along  the  coast  lay  the  boulders 
he  had  flung  at  Acis,  the  beautiful  young  shepherd. 
Polyphemus  having  still  an  eye  in  those  days,  his  aim 
was  truer,  and  the  shepherd  was  killed,  but  who  may 
baffle  true  love?  The  dead  boy  melted  away  beneath 
the  stones  and  was  transformed  to  the  bright  and  rac- 
ing river  Acis  (which  they  crossed  just  then),  and  the 
river,  flowing  round  the  stones,  runs  still  across  the 
plain  to  fling  itself  into  the  arms  of  the  sea-nymph 
Gaktea.  So  the  two  still  meet  as  of  old,  and  play 
laughingly  together  in  and  out  among  the  huge  rocks, 
which  certainly  might  have  been  flung  there  by 
9 


130  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

in  one  of  her  volcanic  furies,  but  which,  if  one  may 
believe  the  Greek  story,  were  really  the  gigantic  weapons 
of  a  cruel  jealousy. 

Jane  and  Peripatetica  could  put  their  heads  out  of 
the  windows  and  study  history  and  legend  at  their  ease, 
the  train  ambling  amiably  and  not  too  rapidly  through 
the  lovely  land,  where  the  near  return  of  Persephone 
was  foreshadowed  in  the  delicate  rosy  clouds  of  the 
Judas  trees  drifting  across  the  black  green  of  dense 
carobs.  It  was  foretold,  too,  by  the  broad  yellow  mus- 
tard fields  blooming  under  the  shadow  of  silver-grey 
olive  orchards;  Fields-of-the-Cloth-of-Gold  they  were, 
about  which  Spring  was  pitching  white  tents  of  plum 
flowers  in  which  to  sign  royal  alliance  with  Summer. 
They  saw  old  Sicilian  farm-steadings  here  and  there 
crowning  the  rising  ground  on  either  hand,  freaked 
and  lichened  with  years,  and  showing  among  their 
spiring  cypresses  the  square  towers  to  which  the  in- 
habitants had  fled  for  safety  in  the  old  days  of  Levan- 
tine piracy.  Many  of  these  houses  were  very  old,  six 
or  eight  hundred  years  old,  it  was  said.  Orange  and 
lemon  groves  on  either  side  the  way  still  hung  heavy 
with  fruit,  plainly  feeling  it  a  duty  laid  upon  them  to 
look  like  the  trees  in  Benozzo  Gozzoli's  frescoes;  like 
the  trees  of  all  the  Old  Masters'  backgrounds.  In- 
variably being  round,  close  clumps  of  green  set  thick 
with  golden  balls,  quite  unlike  the  orange  trees  in 
America,  which  have  never  had  proper  decorative  and 
artistic  models  set  for  their  copying,  and  therefore  grow 
carelessly  and  less  beautifully. 

As  far  as  the  eye  could  reach  the  whole  land  was 
furred  with  the  tender  green  of  sprouting  corn.  For 
this  was  once  Europe's  granary,  and  the  place  of  Rome's 


ONE  DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS          131 

bread;  here  Demeter  first  taught  man  to  sow  and  reap, 
and  despite  ^Etna's  fires,  despite  the  destruction  and 
ravaging  of  a  thousand  wars,  and  thousands  of  years 
of  careless  unrcstorative  use  of  the  soil,  corn  still  grows 
on  this  pkin,  so  hard,  so  perfect,  and  so  nourishing  of 
grain  that  no  Sicilian  can  afford  to  eat  it,  selling  his 
own  crop  to  macaroni  manufacturers,  and  contenting 
himself  with  a  poorer  imported  wheat  for  his  dark  daily 
bread. 

In  these  rich  meadows,  too,  replacing  the  frigid  little 
Evangelical-looking  goat  of  Taormina,  browsed  fat 
flocks  in  snowy  silken  fleeces,  and  with  long  wavy 
horns.  Flocks  that  were  tended  by  shepherds  draped 
in  faded  blue  or  brown  hooded  cloaks,  wearing  sheep's 
wool  bound  about  their  cross-gartered  legs,  their  feet 
shod  with  hairy  goat-skin  shoes.  They  leaned  in  con- 
templative attitudes  on  long  staves — as  every  right- 
minded  shepherd  should — so  old  a  picture,  so  un- 
changed from  far-off,  pastoral  days!  Just  so  had  they 
shown  themselves  to  Theocritus,  when  that  sweet 
young  singer  of  the  early  time  had  wandered  here 
among  the  herdsmen,  the  fishers,  and  the  delvers  in  the 
good  brown  earth,  in  the  days  when  the  Greeks  still 
lived  and  ruled  here,  so  long  and  long  ago. 

"I  wish  they  would  pipe,"  said  Peripatetica.  "It 
only  needs  to  complete  the  picture  that  innocent  sweet 
trilling  of  the  shepherd's  reed  that  is  like  the  voices  of 
the  birds  and  of  the  cicalas." 

"Oh,  they  daren't  do  it  here  in  high  noon,"  remon- 
strated Jane.  "For  fear  of  Pan,  you  know."  And 
she  turned  back  the  pages  of  her  little  book  to  read 
aloud  the  sweetest  and  perfectest  of  the  Idyls.  .  .  . 


132  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

THYRSIS.  Sweet,  meseems,  is  the  whispering  sound 
of  yonder  pine  tree,  goatherd,  that  murmureth  by  the 
wells  of  water;  and  sweet  are  thy  pipings.  After  Pan 
the  second  prize  shalt  thou  bear  away,  and  if  he  take 
the  horned  goat,  the  she-goat  shalt  thou  win;  but  if  he 
choose  the  she-goat  for  his  meed,  the  kid  falls  to  thee, 
and  dainty  is  the  flesh  of  kids  ere  the  age  when  thou 
milkest  them. 

THE  GOATHERD.  Sweeter,  O  shepherd,  is  thy  song 
than  the  music  of  yonder  water  that  is  poured  from 
the  high  face  of  the  rock!  Yea,  if  the  Muses  take  the 
young  ewe  for  their  gift,  a  stall-fed  lamb  shalt  thou 
receive  for  thy  meed;  but  if  it  please  them  to  take  the 
lamb,  thou  shalt  lead  away  the  ewe  for  the  second  prize. 

THYRSIS.  Wilt  thou,  goatherd,  in  the  nymphs' 
name,  wilt  thou  sit  thee  down  here,  among  the  tama- 
risks, on  this  sloping  knoll,  and  pipe  while  in  this  place 
I  watch  thy  flocks? 

GOATHERD.  Nay,  shepherd,  it  may  not  be;  we  may 
not  pipe  in  the  noontide.  'Tis  Pan  we  dread,  who 
truly  at  this  hour  rests  weary  from  the  chase;  and 
bitter  of  mood  is  he,  the  keen  wrath  sitting  ever  at  his 
nostrils.  But,  Thyrsis,  for  that  thou  surely  wert  wont 
to  sing  The  Affliction  of  Daphnis,  and  hast  most  deeply 
meditated  the  pastoral  muse,  come  hither,  and  beneath 
yonder  elm  let  us  sit  down,  in  face  of  Priapus  and  the 
fountain  fairies,  where  is  that  resting-place  of  the 
shepherds,  and  where  the  oak  trees  are.  Ah!  if  thou 
wilt  but  sing  as  on  that  day  thou  sangest  in  thy  match 
with  Chromis  out  of  Libya,  I  will  let  thee  milk,  ay, 
three  times,  a  goat  that  is  the  mother  of  twins,  and 
even  when  she  has  suckled  her  kids  her  milk  doth  fill 
two  pails.  A  deep  bowl  of  ivy-wood,  too,  I  will  give 


1  PAN'S  GOAT  HERD  " 


ONE   DEAD   IN   THE   FIELDS  133 

thee,  rubbed  with  sweet  bees'-wax,  a  two-eared  bowl 
newly  wrought,  smacking  still  of  the  knife  of  the 
graver.  Round  its  upper  edges  goes  the  ivy  winding, 
ivy  besprent  with  golden  flowers;  and  about  it  is  a 
tendril  twisted  that  joys  in  its  saffron  fruit.  Within  is 
designed  a  maiden,  as  fair  a  thing  as  the  gods  could 
fashion,  arrayed  in  a  sweeping  robe,  and  a  snood  on  her 
head.  Beside  her  two  youths  with  fair  love-locks  are 
contending  from  either  side,  with  alternate  speech,  but 
her  heart  thereby  is  all  untouched.  And  now  on  one 
she  glances,  smiling,  and  anon  she  lightly  flings  the 
other  a  thought,  while  by  reason  of  the  long  vigils  of 
love  their  eyes  are  heavy,  but  their  labour  is  all  in  vain. 

Beyond  these  an  ancient  fisherman  and  a  rock  are 
fashioned,  a  rugged  rock,  whereon  with  might  and 
main  the  old  man  drags  a  great  net  for  his  cast,  as  one 
that  labours  stoutly.  Thou  wouldst  say  that  he  is 
fishing  with  all  the  might  of  his  limbs,  so  big  the  sinews 
swell  all  about  his  neck,  grey-haired  though  he  be,  but 
his  strength  is  as  the  strength  of  youth.  Now  divided 
but  a  little  space  from  the  sea-worn  old  man  is  a  vine- 
yard laden  well  with  fire-red  clusters,  and  on  the  rough 
wall  a  little  lad  watches  the  vineyard,  sitting  there. 
Round  him  two  she-foxes  are  skulking,  and  one  goes 
along  the  vine-rows  to  devour  the  ripe  grapes,  and  the 
other  brings  all  her  cunning  to  bear  against  the  scrip, 
and  vows  she  will  never  leave  the  kd,  till  she  strand 
him  bare  and  breakfastless.  But  the  boy  is  plaiting 
a  pretty  locust-cage  with  stalks  of  asphodel,  and  fitting 
it  with  reeds,  and  less  care  of  his  scrip  has  he,  and  of 
the  vines,  than  delight  in  his  plaiting. 

All  about  the  cup  is  spread  the  soft  acanthus,  a 
miracle  of  varied  work,  a  thing  for  thee  to  marvel  on. 


134  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

For  this  bowl  I  paid  to  a  Calydonian  ferryman  a  goat 
and  a  great  white  cream  cheese.  Never  has  its  lip 
touched  mine,  but  it  still  lies  maiden  for  me.  Gladly 
with  this  cup  would  I  gain  thee  to  my  desire,  if  thou, 
my  friend,  wilt  sing  me  that  delightful  song.  Nay,  I 
grudge  it  thee  not  at  all.  Begin,  my  friend,  for  be 
sure  thou  canst  in  no  wise  carry  thy  song  with  thee  to 
Hades,  that  puts  all  things  out  of  mind! 

The  Song  of  Thyrsis. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song!  Thyr- 
sis of  ^Etna  am  I,  and  this  is  the  voice  of  Thyrsis. 
Where,  ah!  where  were  ye  when  Daphnis  was  lan- 
guishing; ye  Nymphs,  where  were  ye?  By  Peneus' 
beautiful  dells,  or  by  dells  of  Pindus?  for  surely  ye 
dwelt  not  by  the  great  stream  of  the  river  Anapus,  nor 
on  the  watch-tower  of  ^Etna,  nor  by  the  sacred  water 
of  Acis. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

For  him  the  jackals,  for  him  the  wolves  did  cry;  for 
him  did  even  the  lion  out  of  the  forest  lament.  Kine 
and  bulls  by  his  feet  right  many,  and  heifers  plenty, 
with  the  young  calves  bewailed  him. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

Came  Hermes  first  from  the  hill,  and  said,  "Daph- 
nis, who  is  it  that  torments  thee;  child,  whom  dost 
thou  love  with  so  great  desire?"  The  neatherds  came, 
and  the  shepherds;  the  goatherds  came;  all  they  asked 
what  ailed  him.  Came  also  Priapus, — 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

And  said:  "Unhappy  Daphnis,  wherefore  dost  thou 
languish,  while  for  thee  the  maiden  by  all  the  fountains, 
through  all  the  glades  is  fleeting,  in  search  of  thee? 


135 

Ah!  thou  art  too  laggard  a  lover,  and  thou  nothing 
availest!  A  neatherd  wert  thou  named,  and  now  thou 
art  like  the  goatherd. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

"For  the  goatherd,  when  he  marks  the  young  goats 
at  their  pastime,  looks  on  with  yearning  eyes,  and  fain 
would  be  even  as  they;  and  thou,  when  thou  behold- 
est  the  laughter  of  maidens,  dost  gaze  with  yearning 
eyes,  for  that  thou  dost  not  join  their  dances." 
Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

Yet  these  the  herdsman  answered  not  again,  but  he 
bare  his  bitter  love  to  the  end,  yea,  to  the  fated  end  he 
bare  it. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

Ay,  but  she  too  came,  the  sweetly  smiling  Cypris, 
craftily  smiling  she  came,  yet  keeping  her  heavy  anger; 
and  she  spake,  saying:  "Daphnis,  methinks  thou  didst 
boast  that  thou  wouldst  throw  Love  a  fall,  nay,  is  it 
not  thyself  that  hast  been  thrown  by  grievous  Love  ? " 
Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

But  to  her  Daphnis  answered  again:  "Implacable 
Cypris,  Cypris  terrible,  Cypris  of  mortals  detested, 
already  dost  thou  deem  that  my  latest  sun  has  set;  nay, 
Daphnis  even  in  Hades  shall  prove  great  sorrow  to 
Love. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

"Get  thee  to  Ida,  get  thee  to  Anchises!  There  are 
oak  trees — here  only  galingale  blows,  here  sweetly  hum 
the  bees  about  the  hives! 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

"Thine  Adonis,  too,  is  in  his  bloom,  for  he  herds 
the  sheep  and  slays  the  hares,  and  he  chases  all  the 
wild  beasts.  Nay,  go  and  confront  Diomedes  again, 


136  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

and  say,  'The    herdsman  Daphnis   I  conquered,  do 
thou  join  battle  with  me.' " 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

"Ye  wolves,  ye  jackals,  and  ye  bears  in  the  moun- 
tain caves,  farewell!  The  herdsman  Daphnis  ye  never 
shall  see  again,  no  more  in  the  dells,  no  more  in  the 
groves,  no  more  in  the  woodlands.  Farewell  Arethusa, 
ye  rivers  good-night,  that  pour  down  Thymbris  your 
beautiful  waters. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

"That  Daphnis  am  I  who  here  do  herd  the  kine, 
Daphnis  who  water  here  the  bulls  and  calves. 

"O  Pan,  Pan!  whether  thou  art  on  the  high  hills  of 
Lycasus,  or  rangest  mighty  Maenalus,  haste  hither  to 
the  Sicilian  isle!  Leave  the  tomb  of  Helice,  leave  that 
high  cairn  of  the  son  of  Lycaeon,  which  seems  wondrous 
fair,  even  in  the  eyes  of  the  blessed. 
Give  o'er,  ye  Muses,  come,  give  o'er  the  pastoral  song! 

"Come  hither,  my  prince,  and  take  this  fair  pipe, 
honey-breathed  with  wax-stopped  joints;    and  well  it 
fits  thy  lip;  for  verily  I,  even  I,  by  Love  am  now  haled 
to  Hades. 
Give  o'er,  ye  Muses,  come,  give  o'er  the  pastoral  song! 

"Now  violets  bear,  ye  brambles,  ye  thorns  bear  vio- 
lets and  let  fair  narcissus  bloom  on  the  boughs  of  juni- 
per! Let  all  things  with  all  be  confounded — from 
pines  let  men  gather  pears,  for  Daphnis  is  dying!  Let 
the  stag  drag  down  the  hounds,  let  owls  from  the  hills 
contend  in  song  with  the  nightingales." 
Give  o'er,  ye  Muses,  come,  give  o'er  the  pastoral  song! 

So  Daphnis  spake,  and  ended;  but  fain  would  Aphro- 
dite have  given  him  back  to  life.  Nay,  spun  was  all 
the  thread  that  the  Fates  assigned,  and  Daphnis  went 


ONE   DEAD   IN  THE  FIELDS  137 

down  the  stream.     The  whirling  wave  closed  over  the 

man  the  Muses  loved,  the  man  not  hated  of  the  nymphs. 

Give  o'er,  ye  Muses,  come,  give  o'er  the  pastoral  song! 

And  thou,  give  me  the  bowl,  and  the  she-goat,  that 
I  may  milk  her  and  pour  forth  a  libation  to  the  Muses. 
Farewell,  oh,  farewells  manifold,  ye  Muses,  and  I, 
some  future  day,  will  sing  you  yet  a  sweeter  song. 

The  Goatherd.  Filled  may  thy  fair  mouth  be  with 
honey,  Thyrsis,  and  filled  with  the  honey-comb;  and 
the  sweet  dried  fig  mayest  thou  eat  of  ^Egilus,  for  thou 
vanquishest  the  cicala  in  song!  Lo,  here  is  thy  cup, 
see,  my  friend,  of  how  pleasant  a  savour!  Thou  wilt 
think  it  has  been  dipped  in  the  well-spring  of  the  Hours. 
Hither,  hither,  Cissaetha:  do  thou  milk  her,  Thyrsis. 
And  you  young  she-goats,  wanton  not  so  wildly  lest 
you  bring  up  the  he-goat  against  you. 


"What  a  crowded  place  Sicily  is!"  cried  Jane, 
heaving  an  oppressed  breath. 

"Isn't  it?"  sympathized  Peripatetica.  "Here  we 
are  on  our  way  to  the  very  fountain,  as  it  seems,  of 
history — Syracuse,  where  nearly  everything  happened 
that  ever  did  happen,  and  yet  one  has  to  mentally  push 
one's  way  through  a  swarming  crowd  of  events  to  get 
there,  because  almost  everything  that  didn't  happen 
in  Syracuse  occurred  in  these  Sicilian  plains.  When 
you  think  of  the  kyer  on  layer  of  human  life,  like  geo- 
logic strata,  that  lies  all  over  this  place,  you  realize 
that  it  would  take  half  a  lifetime  to  come  to  some  un- 
derstanding of  the  significance  of  it  all,  and  that  it's 


138  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

foolish  to  go  on  until  one  can  get  some  hold  upon  the 
meaning  of  what  lies  right  here." 

This  "simple  but  first-class  conversation"  took 
place  in  the  eating-station  at  Catania  which  the  two 
had  all  to  themselves,  most  of  the  Tedeschi  tourists 
frugally  remaining  in  the  train  and  staying  their  pangs 
from  bottles,  and  with  odds  and  ends  out  of  paper 
parcels,  from  which  feasts  they  emerged  later  replete 
but  crumby. 

Poor  Catania!  sunk  to  a  mere  feeding-trough  for 
passing  tourists.  She,  the  great  city  sitting  blandly 
among  her  temples  and  towers,  wooed  for  her  money 
bags  by  all  the  warlike  neighbours.  For  whenever  her 
neighbours  squabbled  with  one  another,  which  was 
pretty  nearly  all  the  time — or  whenever  an  outsider  in- 
tervened— each  strove  to  engage  the  aid  of  this  rich 
landholder,  sending  embassies  and  emissaries  to  bully 
or  cajole  Catania.  As  rich  folk  will,  she  always  tried  to 
protect  herself  by  taking  neither  side  completely,  speak- 
ing fair  to  each,  and,  like  all  Laodiceans,  she  made 
thereby  two  enemies  instead  of  one,  and  was  considered 
fair  prey  by  both. 

That  splendid,  dangerous  dandy,  Alcibiades,  was 
one  of  these  ambassadors.  Almost  under  the  feet  of 
Jane  and  Peripatetica,  as  they  sat  with  their  mouths 
full  of  crisp  delectable  little  tarts,  had  the  wily  Athenian 
spoken  in  the  Catanian  theatre.  The  older  men  en- 
joyed his  eloquent,  graceful  Greek,  but  they  were  quite 
determined  not  to  be  persuaded  by  it  to  let  his  fleet 
enter  their  harbour,  his  army  enter  their  city,  or  to  be 
used  as  a  base  from  which  to  strike  the  Syracusians. 
The  Catanians  didn't  like  Syracuse,  but  they  didn't 
mean  to  embroil  themselves  with  her.  They  secretly 


ONE   DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS  139 

hoped  the  Athenians  would  reduce  that  dangerous 
neighbour  to  despair,  but  if  either  destroyed  the  other 
— why,  then  it  would  be  well  to  be  able  to  show  the 
victor  their  clean  hands. 

Alcibiades  was  quite  aware  he  was  not  convincing 
them,  but  he  enjoyed  turning  brilliant  periods  in  pub- 
lic, and  was  meanwhile  pleasantly  conscious  of  the 
young  men  in  the  audience  admiring  the  chasing  of 
his  buckles,  the  artful  folds  of  his  gold-embroidered 
chalmyde,  the  exquisite  angle  at  which  he  knotted  his 
fillet,  privately  resolving  to  readjust  their  own  provin- 
cial toilets  by  the  model  of  this  famous  glass  of  fashion. 
And  when  they  all  poured  out  of  the  theatre  after  his 
brilliantly  preferred  request  had  been  politely  refused, 
he  could  afford  to  smile  calmly,  for,  behold!  there  was 
the  Athenian  fleet  in  the  harbour,  the  Athenian  army 
in  the  city.  He  had  not  been  using  those  well-turned 
phrases  for  mere  idleness.  They  had  availed  to  keep 
the  authorities  occupied  while  his  subordinates  had 
executed  his  commands. 

And  their  caution  was  of  no  avail  whatever,  for  in 
due  time,  when  Alcibiades  was  in  exile  and  the  Athe- 
nians rotting  in  the  Latomiae,  Syracuse  duly  turned  and 
"took  it  out  of  "  Catania.  Took  it  out  good  and  hard 
too. 

There  was  no  use  stopping  over  a  train  to  see  the 
old  theatre  and  realize  for  themselves  this  curious  bit 
of  history;  it  only  meant  crawling  through  black  pas- 
sages by  the  light  of  a  smoky  candle,  for  JEtna.  in  1669 
— in  a  fit  of  ennui  with  poor  Catania — had  pitched 
down  thousands  of  tons  of  lava  upon  her  and  hid  all 
the  rich  city's  ancient  glories  from  the  sun. 

It  was  from  Catania  that  another  interesting  Greek 


140  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

had  set  out  upon  his  last  journey.  A  journey  to  the 
crest  of  that  volcano  which  has  been  constantly  taking 
a  hand  in  the  destinies  of  Sicily,  with  what — in  its 
careless  malice,  its  malignant  furies — seems  almost  like 
the  personal  wickedness  of  some  demon;  that  incal- 
culable mountain  whose  soaring  outlines  had  been  com- 
ing out  at  Jane  and  Peripatetica  all  day  whenever  the 
train  turned  a  corner,  as  if  to  reassure  them  that  they 
couldn't  lose  her  if  they  tried.  JEtna,  was  from  the 
very  beginning  the  pre-eminent  fact  in  this  part  of  Sicily. 

First  Zeus — who  always  had  a  cheerful  disregard  of 
any  rules  of  chivalry  in  dealing  with  his  enemies — tied 
down  the  unlucky  Titan  Enceladus  upon  this  very 
spot,  and,  gathering  up  enough  of  Sicily  to  make  a 
mountain  the  size  of  JStna,  heaped  it  on  top  of  him, 
probably  congratulating  himself  the  while  that  he  had 
put  a  complete  end  to  that  particular  annoyance.  But 
quite  a  number  of  rulers  since  Zeus  have  discovered 
that  in  a  rebellious  temperament  there  reside  resources 
of  annoyingness  which  even  a  god  cannot  entirely 
foresee  or  provide  against,  and  the  Titan  still  heaves 
restlessly  at  his  load  from  time  to  time,  rocking  the 
whole  island  with  his  struggles,  toppling  towers,  en- 
gulfing cities,  tearing  the  earth  apart  in  his  furies. 

Some  of  the  myths  accuse  Demeter  herself  of  having 
set  ^Etna  alight  in  her  frenzy,  that  all  Sicily  might  thus 
be  illumined  to  aid  her  in  the  search  for  Persephone, 
and  that  never  since  that  reckless  day  has  she  been  able 
to  extinguish  it,  but  must  fight,  with  rain  and  dews  and 
snows  to  save  her  people's  bread  from  the  flames  for- 
ever threatening  to  destroy  it.  The  fire  pours  forth 
from  time  to  time,  spreading  cruel  ruin,  but  ever,  aided 
by  her,  man  creeps  up  and  up  once  more.  Up  to  Ran- 


ONE  DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS          141 

dazzo;  up  to  Bronte,  the  "thunder  town,"  given  to 
Lord  Nelson  by  Marie  Antoinette's  sister,  then  Queen 
of  the  Two  Sicilies,  where  the  Dukes  of  Bronte,  Nel- 
son's descendants,  still  live  part  of  each  year  in  their 
wild  eyrie. 

The  vine  and  the  olive  climb  and  climb  after  each 
catastrophe.  They  cover  the  old  scars  of  the  erup- 
tions, perch  in  crevices  where  a  goat  can  scarce  stand, 
and  wring  from  the  rich  crumbs  of  soil  "wine  that 
maketh  glad  the  heart  of  man,  and  oil  that  causeth  his 
countenance  to  shine." 

Up  to  the  top  of  this  yEtna — ten  thousand  feet  up — 
on  the  last  journey  from  Catania  climbed  Empedocles, 
that  strange  figure  who  passes  with  ringing  brazen 
sandals  through  the  history  of  Sicily.  Empedocles, 
clothed  in  purple,  crowned  with  a  wreath  of  golden 
leaves,  followed  by  thousands  to  whom  he  taught  some 
strange,  half  Pythagorean  worship,  the  form  and  mean- 
ing of  which  have  vanished  with  time,  save  for  some 
hints  of  a  sort  of  mental  healing  practised  upon  his 
followers.  Empedocles,  composing  vast  poems  of 
thousands  of  lines,  and  vaunting  himself  as  a  Super- 
man, saying: 

"An  immortal  god,  and  no  longer  a  mortal  man,  I 
wander  among  you;  honoured  by  all,  adorned  with 
priestly  diadems  and  blooming  wreaths.  Into  what- 
ever illustrious  towns  I  enter  men  and  women  pay  me 
reverence,  and  I  am  accompanied  by  thousands  who 
thirst  for  their  advantage;  some  being  desirous  to 
know  the  future,  and  others,  tormented  by  long  and 
terrible  disease,  waiting  to  hear  the  spells  that  soothe 
suffering." 

Whether  his  following  fell  away;    whether  he  be- 


142  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

came  the  victim  of  some  wild  melancholy,  some  cor- 
roding welt-schmerz — unable  to  cure  the  ills  of  his  own 
soul  with  his  own  doctrines — no  one  knows,  but  the 
dramatic  manner  of  his  exit  printed  his  name  indelibly 
upon  the  memory  of  the  world  from  which  he  fled. 

Deserting  late  at  night  a  feast  in  Catania,  he  mounted 
a  mule,  climbed  the  rough  steeps,  threaded  the  dusky 
oak  woods,  dismissed  his  last  follower,  and — after  lin- 
gering a  moment  to  listen  to  the  boy-harper  Callicles 
singing  in  the  dawn  at  the  edge  of  the  forest — he  passed 
on  upward  through  the  snows,  and  was  seen  no  more 
by  human  eye.  Only  the  brazen  sandal  was  found 
beside  the  crater,  into  whose  unutterable  furnace — 
urged  by  some  divine  despair — he  had  flung  himself: 
all  that  had  been  that  aspiring,  passionate  life  vanish- 
ing in  an  instant  in  a  hiss  of  steam,  a  puff  of  gas,  upon 
the  most  stupendous  funeral  pyre  ever  chosen  by  man. 


There  was  endless  history  waiting  to  be  looked  into 
at  Catania;  frightful  passagings  and  scufflings,  mas- 
sacres and  exilings,  murders,  conspiracies  and  poison- 
ings, and  every  other  uncomfortable  exhibition  of 
"man's  inhumanity  to  man" — accompanied,  of  course, 
by  heroisms,  patriotic  self-sacrifice,  and  a  thousand 
humble,  unremembered  kindnesses  and  virtues,  such 
as  forever  form  warp  and  woof  of  the  web  of  life  and 
time.  But  railway  schedules,  even  in  Sicily,  are  al- 
most heartlessly  indifferent  to  tradition,  and  when  the 
last  tartlet  was  consumed  the  two  seekers  for  Perseph- 
one were  dragged  Syracuse-ward,  along  with  the 
crumby  Tedeschi,  divided  during  the  long  afternoon 
between  increasing  drowsiness  and  reproachful  Baede- 


ONE   DEAD   IN  THE   FIELDS  143 

kers.  At  last  came  sea  marshes,  where  salt-pans  evap- 
orated in  the  sun,  and  toward  sunset  the  train  dumped 
them  all  promiscuously  into  station  omnibuses  at  the 
capital  of  history;  too  grubby  and  fatigued  to  care 
whether  the  first  class  in  historical  research  was  called 
or  not. 

The  Tedeschi,  after  their  frugal  fashion,  went  in 
search  of  cheap  pensions  in  the  city,  and  only  Jane  and 
Peripatetica  entered  the  wheeled  tender  of  the  Villa 
Politi,  along  with  a  young  Italian  pair,  obviously  en- 
gaged upon  a  honeymoon.  A  pair  who  never  ceased 
to  look  unutterable  things  at  each  other  out  of  fine 
eyes  bistred  with  railway  grime,  nor  ceased  to  mur- 
mur soft  nothings  from  lips  surrounded  with  the  shad- 
ows of  railway  soot,  undaunted  by  the  frank  interest 
of  the  hotel  portier  hanging  on  to  the  step,  nor  by  the 
joltings  of  the  dusty  white  road  that  led,  through  the 
noisy  building  of  many  ugly  new  vilks,  up  to  bare, 
wind-swept  heights. 

Strong  in  the  possession  of  a  note  from  the  proprie- 
tor promising  accommodation,  with  which,  this  time, 
the  wayfarers  had  had  the  prudence  to  arm  themselves, 
Jane  and  Peripatetica  swept  languidly  up  the  steps, 
ordering  that  their  luggage  be  placed  in  their  rooms 
and  tea  served  immediately  upon  the  terrace. 

But  there  were  no  rooms.  No  rooms  of  any  kind, 
single  or  double! 

The  note  was  produced.  There  it  was,  down  in 
black  and  white! 

The  young  Signor  Antonio  drew  a  similar  weapon — 
more  black  and  white  promises! 

The  Padrone  raised  eyes  and  hands  in  a  gesture  al- 
most consoling  in  its  histrionic  effectiveness. 


144  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

Could  he  make  guests  depart  at  the  time  they  said 
they  would  depart? 

Could  he  cast  them  out  neck  and  crop  when  they 
found  Syracuse  so  attractive  that  they  changed  their 
minds  about  going  away  and  vacating  rooms  promised 
to  others? 

He  left  it  to  Jane.  He  left  it  to  Peripatetica.  He 
left  it  to  Signer  Antonio.  He  left  it  to  Signer  Antonio's 
beautiful  bride,  his  "bellissima  sposa."  Could  he? 
He  asked  that!  .  .  . 

The  two  seekers  were  sternly  sarcastic.  Signer 
Antonio  imitated  the  histrionic  attitude.  The  Bellis- 
sima Sposa  simply  smiled  fatuously.  Beloved  An- 
tonio now  held  her  destinies  in  his  strong  hand.  Was 
it  a  royal  suite?  Well  and  good.  Was  it  a  corner  of 
a  stone  wall  under  an  umbrella  ?  It  was  still  well  and 
good,  for  would  she  not  still  be  writh  her  Antonio? 

The  honeyed  submissiveness  of  this  was  too  much 
for  even  the  wicked  obduracy  of  the  Padrone. 

There  was  a  billiard  room — for  the  night.  To- 
morrow some  one  must  keep  his  promise  and  go.  They 
could  choose  among  themselves. 

The  bride  was  led  away  to  the  billiard  room,  still 
gazing  upon  her  Antonio  with  intoxicated  content,  and 
two  cross  females,  shaking  the  dust  of  the  Villa  Politi's 
glowing  garden  and  vine-wreathed  terraces  from  their 
feet,  jolted  back  again  indignantly  along  the  bare, 
windy  heights  fretted  by  the  clamour  of  a  sirocco- 
tortured  sea.  Past  the  gritty  precincts  of  the  ugly 
building  villas,  to  the  gaunt  precincts  of  an  hotel  with- 
in the  shrunken  town.  There  to  climb  early  into  beds  of 
the  sloping  pitch  and  rugged  surface  of  a  couple  of 
tiled  roofs;  to  lay  their  heads  upon  pillows  undoubtedly 


ONE   DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS  145 

stuffed  with  the  obdurate  skulls  of  all  Syracuse's  myriad 
dead,  and  to  listen  in  the  wakefulness  thereby  induced 
to  the  dull  sickening  thuds  about  the  floor  which  they 
knew,  for  good  and  sufficient  reasons,  to  be  the  noc- 
turnal hopping  of  the  mighty  Syracusan  flea.  .  .  . 

"Fancy  anyone  being  tempted  to  remain  over  here!" 
sneered  Peripatetica. 

This  was  in  the  morning.  They  had  compared  the 
bleatings  of  the  goats;  the  raucous  early  cries  of  the 
population;  the  effects  of  sirocco;  the  devices  by 
which,  clinging  with  teeth  and  nails,  they  had  succeeded 
in  maintaining  their  perch  on  the  tile  roofs;  had  boasted 
of  their  shikarry  among  the  hopping,  devouring  mon- 
sters of  the  dark. 

"Talk  of  history!"  mourned  Jane.  "Who  could 
be  the  adequate  Herodotus  of  last  night?" 

They  were  on  their  way  to  the  Temple  of  Minerva. 
The  route  led  by  a  wide  sea-street,  half  of  whose  length 
gave  upon  that  famous  Inner  Harbour  so  often  filled 
with  hostile  fleets,  so  often  barred  by  great  chains,  so 
often  echoing  with  clanging  battles,  with  the  bubbling 
shrieks  of  the  drowning.  Now  the  sparkling  waters 
rolled  untinged  with  blood,  the  clean  salt  air  swept  un- 
hindered across  their  path,  for  half  of  the  huge  sea- 
wall had  been  recently  demolished  to  let  in  wind  and 
sun,  though  part  still  towered  grimly,  darkening  the 
way,  shutting  out  the  light  from  the  opposite  dwellings. 

The  path  turned  at  right  angles  and  wound  through 
narrow  foot-pathless  cracks,  between  houses;  cracks 
that  served  the  older  Syracuse  in  lieu  of  streets,  where 
swarmed  in  the  dingy  narrownesses  the  everlasting  goat, 
the  ever  pervasive  child.  Very  different  children  these 
from  those  cherub  heads,  with  busy  little  legs  growing 
10 


146  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

out  of  them,  who  formed  the  rising  population  of  Taor- 
mina.  Taormina,  who  has  solved  that  whole  question 
of  educating  children ;  a  question  which  still  so  puzzles 
the  unintelligent  rest  of  mankind.  For  weeks  they  had 
walked  the  ancient  ways  of  that  high-perched  town, 
picking  careful  steps  amid  its  infant  hordes,  and  never 
once  had  they  heard  a  cry,  or  seen  a  discontented  child. 

"Occupation  was  the  secret  of  all  that  cherubic 
goodness,  I  think,"  said  Peripatetica  reflectively. 
"Don't  you  remember  that  every  single  one  of  them 
had  a  job?" 

"Of  course,  I  remember,"  said  Jane  crossly.  "You 
needn't  remind  me.  It  was  only  twenty-four  hours  ago 
we  were  there — though  it  seems  ages  since  we  fell  out 
of  the  tender  protecting  care  of  dear  'Questo-qui.' 
You  can  put  it  all  in  the  book  if  you  feel  you  must  talk 
about  it." 

"Jane,  your  usually  charming  temper  has  been 
spoiled  by  a  night  on  a  roof.  It  has  made  a  cat  of 
you,"  persisted  Peripatetica  as  she  calmly  circled  round 
a  goat.  When  the  fount  of  her  eloquence  was  unsealed 
it  was  not  to  be  choked  by  the  mere  casting  of  a  stony 
snub  into  it. 

"I  devoted  some  of  the  dark  hours  on  my  tiles  to 
profound  philosophic  reflection  upon  the  Taorminian 
methods  with  children,"  she  continued.  "I  have  often 
thought  the  ennui  suffered  by  children  and  pet  animals 
was  the  cause  of  much  of  their  restless  fretfulness. 
Even  the  most  undeveloped  nature  feels  the  difference 
between  a  real  occupation  and  an  imitation  one;  feels 
the  importance  of  being  an  economic  factor.  Now 
those  Taormina  children  from  the  age  of  two  years  are 
made  to  feel  they  are  really  important  and  necessary 


ONE  DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS          147 

members  of  the  family.  They  knit  as  soon  as  they  can 
walk;  they  sew,  they  do  drawn-work,  at  five.  They 
sit  in  the  streets  at  little  tables  and  help  cobble  shoes 
or  mend  teakettles.  They  shop  for  busy  parents;  they 
fetch  and  carry.  They  pull  out  of  the  gardens  and 
orchards  weeds  as  tall  as  themselves,  and  everywhere 
are  calm  and  self-respecting,  and  receive  from  their 
parents  and  their  grown-up  neighbours  that  serious 
courtesy  and  consideration  due  to  useful  and  well-be- 
haved citizens.  One  does  not  slap  or  jerk  or  scold  val- 
uable and  important  members  of  the  community,  and 
no  youthful  Taorminian  would  permit  such  an  unjusti- 
fiable liberty  from  a  parent." 

Borne  on  this  flood  of  words  they  suddenly  flowed 
out  into  a  big  irregular  square  where  stood  one  of  the 
most  curious  buildings  in  the  world;  the  great  temple 
of  Pallas  of  the  Syracusans.  The  enormous  fluted 
Doric  columns  were  sunk  into  the  walls  of  a  Cathedral, 
for  Zosimus,  bishop  of  Syracuse  in  the  Seventh  Cen- 
tury, had  seized  the  columned  frame  and  had  plastered 
his  church  upon  it — but  so  great  was  the  diameter  of 
the  pillars  that  their  sides  and  capitals  protruded 
through  the  walls  inside  and  out  like  the  prodigious 
stone  ribs  of  some  huge  skeleton.  The  Saracens  had 
come  later,  and,  after  slaughtering  the  priests  and 
women  who  clung  shrieking  to  the  altars,  had  added 
battlements  to  the  roof,  and  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
being  unable,  of  course,  to  keep  its  finger  out  of  even 
the  most  reverend  pie,  had  gummed  upon  the  portal  a 
flaring  baroque  facade  of  yellow  stone.  But  through 
all  disfigurements  and  defacements  the  temple  still 
showed  its  soaring  majesty,  and  Peripatetica,  at  sight 
of  it,  cried: 


148  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

"One  dead  in  the  fields!"  .  .  . 

For  suddenly  was  revealed  to  the  two  the  meaning 
of  what  they  had  been  journeying  to  see — it  was  the 
dead  body  of  a  great  civilization. 

Here,  nearly  three  thousand  years  since,  had  come 
Archias,  the  rich  Heraclid  of  Corinth.  He  had  gath- 
ered sullenly  into  little  ships  his  wealth,  his  family,  and 
his  servants,  and  had  fled  far  down  the  horizon,  an 
execrated  fugitive  because  of  the  skying  of  beautiful 
Actaeon.  And,  finding  on  the  coast  of  the  distant 
God's-land  a  reproduction  of  the  bays  and  straits  of 
the  Corinth  which  had  cast  him  out,  he  founded  there 
a  city.  A  city  that  was  to  have  a  life  like  the  life  of 
some  gifted,  powerful  man,  growing  from  timid  infancy 
to  a  lusty  youth  full  of  dreams  and  passions  and  vague 
towering  ambitions;  struggling  with  and  conquering 
his  fellows;  grasping  at  power  and  glory,  heaping  up 
riches  unbelievable,  decking  himself  in  purple  and  gold, 
living  long  and  gloriously  and  tumultuously;  and  who 
was  to  know  rise  and  fall,  defeats  and  triumphs,  and 
finally  was  to  die  on  the  battlefield,  and  be  left  there  by 
the  victor  to  rot.  So  that  all  the  flesh  would  drop  from 
the  long  frame,  the  muscles  dry  and  fall  apart,  the 
eyes  be  sightless,  and  the  brain  dark;  and  the  little 
busy  insects  of  the  earth  would  carry  away  the  frag- 
ments bit  by  bit,  and  on  the  field  where  he  lay  would 
be  found  at  last  only  the  hollow  skull  once  so  full  of 
proud  purpose;  only  the  slack  white  bones  of  the  arm 
that  had  wielded  the  strong  sword,  the  vast  arch  of  the 
gaunt  ribs  that  once  had  sheltered  the  brave  heart  of 
Syracuse.  And  among  these  dry  bones  little  curious 
creatures  would  come  to  peep  and  peer  and  build  their 
homes;  spiders  spinning  webs  over  the  empty  eye 


ONE   DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS  149 

sockets,   mice   weaving  their  nests  among  the   wide- 
flung  knuckles.  .  .  . 

One  little  spider,  about  ten  minutes  old,  lay  in  wait 
for  these  two  tourist  flies  at  the  side  door  of  the  Cathe- 
dral with  an  offer  to  guide  them,  and  though  they 
sternly  endeavoured  to  brush  the  insect  aside,  doubt- 
ing his  infantile  capacity  to  direct  their  older  intelli- 
gences, the  Spider  was  not  of  the  to-be-brushcd-aside 
variety  and  knew  better  than  they  what  they  really 
needed.  While  they  wandered  through  the  vulgar 
uglinesses  of  Zosimus'  shrine,  trying  to  recall  Cicero's 
glowing  picture  of  the  temple  in  its  glory,  he  never  took 
his  claws  off  of  them.  While  they  talked  of  the  great 
doors  inlaid  with  gold  and  ivory,  of  the  brazen  spears, 
of  the  cella  walls  frescoed  with  the  portraits  and  the 
battles  of  the  Sikel  Kings,  of  the  pedestals  between  each 
column  bearing  images  of  the  gods  in  ivory,  silver,  and 
bronze,  the  Spider  was  patient  and  merely  murmured 
"Greco"  or  "molto  antico"  by  way  of  encouraging 
chorus.  He  let  them  babble  unchecked  of  the  tall 
image  of  armed  Pallas  standing  behind  the  altar,  with 
plumed  helmet  and  robe  of  Tyrian  purple,  grasping  her 
great  spear  in  her  right  hand  and  resting  the  left  hand 
upon  the  golden  shield  that  bore  a  sculptured  Medusa 
head.  Upon  her  pedestal  was  carved  the  cock,  the 
dragon,  and  the  serpent,  and  the  altar  before  her  was 
heaped  with  fresh  olive  boughs  about  the  smouldering 
spices  sending  up  wavering  clouds  of  scented  smoke  that 
coiled  among  the  ceiling's  gilded  plates.  Without,  upon 
the  roof,  stood  another  great  shield  of  gilded  bronze,  a 
beacon  for  sailors  who,  setting  out  upon  long  voyages,  car- 
ried a  cup  of  burning  ashes  from  her  altar  to  sprinkle  on 
the  waves  as  the  glittering  landmark  faded  down  the  sky. 


150  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

But  when  these  reminiscences  of  the  "molto  antico" 
finally  exhausted  themselves,  the  Spider  rose  to  his 
occasion.  He  was  vague  about  Minerva,  but  Santa 
Lucia  was  his  trump  card.  He  was  eminently  capable 
of  guiding  any  number  of  travellers  to  the  chapel  of 
that  big  swarthy  idol  adorned  with  wire-and-cotton 
wreaths,  and  hung  about  with  votive  silver  hands  and 
hearts,  arms  and  legs,  in  grateful  testimony  of  the 
limbs  and  organs  cured  by  her  mercy  and  power.  He 
could  pour  out  in  burning  Sicilian,  illustrated  by  su- 
perb spidery  gestures,  a  thrilling  description  of  the 
yearly  villegiatura  of  Syracuse's  patron  saint.  How 
twice  in  a  twelvemonth  she  feels  the  need  of  change 
of  air,  and  all  the  town  attends  her  visit  of  a  few  days 
to  the  church  beyond  the  bridge,  she  being  escorted  by 
priests  and  censors,  and  blaring  bands,  and  wearing  her 
finest  jewels  and  toilet,  as  befits  a  lady  on  ceremonial 
travels.  It  is  a  festa  for  all  Syracuse,  Spider  explains, 
with  much  good  eating  and  "molto  buono  vino." 

Jane,  always  a  molten  mass  of  useful  information, 
interjects  sotto  voce  into  the  flood  of  his  narrative  that 
precisely  the  same  ceremony  was  used  for  the  image 
of  Diana  when  she  was  the  patron  goddess  of  the 
Syracusans,  and  the  very  same  molto  buono  vino  so 
overcame  the  populace  at  one  of  Diana's  festas  that 
Marcellus,  the  Roman,  after  a  siege  of  three  years, 
captured  the  long  and  fiercely  defended  city  that  very 
night. 

The  Spider  took  them  later  to  see  the  handful  of 
fragments  alone  remaining  of  Diana's  fane — broken 
columns  sunk  in  a  fosse  between  two  houses — though 
once  a  temple  as  splendid  as  Minerva's.  A  temple 
served  by  many  priestesses,  and  surrounded  by  a  great 


ONE   DEAD   IN  THE  FIELDS  151 

grove  sloping  down  to  the  fountain  of  Arethusa.  Among 
these  trees  the  Oceanides  herded  the  sacrificial  deer, 
and  troops  of  just  such  silken-coated,  wavy-horned 
goats  as  feed  to-day  upon  the  Catanian  plain.  And  to 
this  grove  came  young  girls,  offering  up,  to  please  the 
great  Huntress,  their  abandoned  childish  toys  of  baked 
clay.  For  oddly  enough  the  wild,  arrowy  goddess  who 
loved  to  shed  the  blood  of  beasts,  adored  children,  and 
was  a  special  patron  of  theirs,  and  would  even  listen 
favourably  to  the  petitions  of  barren  wives. 

There  seemed  some  strange  vagueness,  some  shad- 
owy inexplicableness  in  the  worship  of  Diana.  All  the 
other  gods  typified  some  force  of  nature,  some  resultant 
struggle  and  passion  of  man  caught  in  nature's  web, 
but  of  the  moon  they  knew  only  that  it  influenced  tides 
and  the  growing  of  plants.  What  is  one  to  make  then 
of  this  fierce  ivory-skinned  Maid  who  sweeps,  crescent- 
crowned,  through  the  moonlit  glades  of  the  deep  prim- 
itive forests,  with  bayings  of  lean  questing  hounds  and 
echoing  call  of  silver  horns,  hard  on  the  track  of  crash- 
ing boar,  of  leaping  deer  ?  There  is  something  as  glim- 
meringly  elusive,  as  magically  haunting  in  the  person- 
ality and  the  worship  of  Diana  as  in  the  moon  itself. 

They  offered  the  web  of  this  conundrum  to  the  Spider, 
but  he  wisely  refused  to  allow  himself  to  be  entangled 
in  it.  This,  however,  is  anticipating  the  real  course  of 
events. 

Already,  before  leaving  the  Cathedral,  another  conun- 
drum had  been  asked  and  not  answered. 

High  on  opposite  sides  of  the  walls  of  the  nave  Jane 
and  Peripatetica  had  observed  two  ornate  glass  and 
gilt  coffins.  The  ore  on  the  left  contained  the  half- 
mummy,  half-skeleton  of  a  man.  A  young,  beardless 


152  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

face  it  was,  the  still  fair  skin  drawn  tight  over  the 
features;  the  still  blond  hair  clustering  about  it  in  curls 
of  dusty  gold.  The  fleshless  visage  was  handsome, 
and  though  strange  and  ghostly,  not  repulsive.  The 
skeleton  body  was  clothed  in  velvet  and  gold,  and  the 
bony,  gloved  fingers  clasped  a  splendid  silver-scab- 
barded  sword;  an  empty  dagger  case  was  hanging 
from  an  embroidered  baldrick  across  the  dead  man's 
breast.  He  lay  on  his  side  in  an  uneasy  attitude,  look- 
ing through  the  transparent  pane  of  his  last  home 
toward  the  opposite  crystal  sarcophagus.  This  op- 
posite coffin  contained  a  half-mummied,  half-skeleton 
woman — a  woman  also  young  and  fair-haired;  art- 
fully caiffed,  her  tresses  wrapped  with  pearls.  Neither 
was  her  face  repulsive;  some  strange  process  had  pre- 
served a  dry  whiteness  in  the  skin  stretched  smooth 
and  unwrinkled  upon  the  bones  and  integuments, 
though  all  the  flesh  was  gone.  She  too  was  clothed 
in  gold  and  silk  in  a  fashion  centuries  old.  Through 
the  lace  of  the  sleeves  showed  the  white  polished  bones 
of  what  must  once  have  been  warm  rounded  arms. 
She  too  was  gloved;  she  too  crouched  upon  her  side 
uneasily,  but  she  did  not  face  her  companion.  Her 
head  was  thrown  back  as  if  in  pain;  and  plunged 
through  the  pointed  silk  corselet — just  where  there 
must  once  have  beat  a  young  heart — was  the  gold- 
handled  dagger  from  the  empty  dagger  case  hung  to 
the  embroidered  baldrick. 

Who  were  they? 

What  tragedy  was  this?  why  did  they  lie  here  in 
their  crystal  sepulchres — was  it  the  record  of  some 
strange  crime,  preserved  with  meticulous  care  for  all 
the  world  to  see? 


ONE   DEAD   IN  THE   FIELDS  153 

The  Spider  could  not  tell.  They  had  always  been 
there.  He  did  not  know  their  names  or  their  story. 
He  could  not  refer  to  anyone  who  did.  Baedeker  was 
equally  indifferent  and  uncommunicative;  he  made  no 
mention  of  them.  Hare  was  silent.  Sladen  ignored 
them.  No  questioning  of  guide-books  or  guides  ever 
unravelled  that  mystery. 


From  the  temple  of  Diana  the  Spider  led  Jane  and 
Peripatetica  through  more  narrow,  crooked  streets 
thronged  with  rough,  fierce  Syracusan  children,  to  see 
the  Sixteenth  Century  palace  of  the  Montaltos,  now 
fallen  on  grimy  days.  The  windows  with  their  ogives 
and  delicate  twisted  columns  were  crumbling,  and  the 
noble  court — through  which  silken  guests  and  mailed 
retainers  had  passed  to  mount  the  great  stairs  and 
throng  the  long  balconies — was  now  full  of  squalid, 
squalling  populace,  and  flocks  of  evil-savoured  brown 
goats  being  milked  for  the  evening  meal. 

For  some  unexplained  reason  the  mere  presence  of 
the  Spider  was  an  offence  to  the  lowering  boys  who 
laired  in  this  court.  His  grown-up  air  of  being  capa- 
bly in  charge  of  two  female  forestieri  stank  in  their 
resentful  nostrils,  but  Spider  was  an  insect  of  his  hands, 
landing  those  hands  resoundingly  upon  the  cheeks  of 
his  buffeters  and  hustlers  until  an  enraged  mother  took 
the  part  of  one  of  her  discomfited  offspring,  and  under 
her  fierce  cuffings  the  Spider  melted  into  outraged  tears. 

Peripatetica  had  already  discovered  that  angry  Eng- 
lish had  a  demoralizing  effect  upon  the  natives.  Its 
crisp  consonants  seemed  as  daunting  as  blows  to  the 
vowelled  Sicilian;  armed  with  which,  and  a  parasol, 


154  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

the  Spider  was  rescued  and  borne  half  way  to  the 
fountain  of  Arethusa  before  he  could  control  his  sniffles 
and  his  protesting  fingers,  upon  which  he  offered  pas- 
sionate illustration  that  even  Hercules  could  not  over- 
come the  odds  of  ten  to  one,  and  that  tears  under  the 
circumstances  left  no  smirch  upon  nascent  manhood. 

Jane,  with  her  usual  large  grasp  of  financial  ques- 
tions, applied  a  lire  to  the  wounded  heart  with  the  hap- 
piest results,  and  it  was  a  once  more  united  and  cheer- 
ful trio  which  leaned  over  Arethusa's  inadequate  little 
fount  with  its  green  scum  and  its  frowzy  papyrus  plants. 
Poor  Nymph!  She  of  the  rainbow,  and  the  "couch 
of  snows" — she  whose  "footsteps  were  paved  with 
green."  Flying  from  the  gross  wooing  of  Alpheus  she 
comes  all  the  way  from  Elis  under  the  sea  to  take 
refuge  with  moon-crowned  Artemis — Artemis  "  the  pro- 
tectress"— and  for  safety  is  turned  into  a  sparkling 
pool  which  feeds  all  Syracuse  with  its  sweet  waters. 
Now  Artemis  is  dead.  Her  cool  groves  have  given  way 
to  acres  of  arid  stone  convents;  earthquakes  have 
cracked  Arethusa's  basin,  letting  the  sea  in  and  the 
sweet  water  out;  modern  bad  taste  has  walled  her 
vulgarly  about,  and  the  poor  old  nymph  can  only 
gurgle  reiterantly,  "I  was  once  a  beauty;  long  ago, 
long  ago!"  with  not  the  smallest  hope  that  any  tourist 
will  believe  it. 


The  Spider  has  retired  to  his  web.  Pranzo  has  been 
discussed,  and  Jane  and  Peripatetica,  refreshed,  are  taking 
another  nibble  at  the  vast  mouthful  of  Syracuse's  past. 

It  was  a  thrilling  pranzo.  Not  because  of  the  food, 
nor  of  its  partakers.  The  food  was  the  same  old  stereo- 


ONE   DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS  155 

typed  menu.  Gnocchi  with  cheese.  Vegetables,  di- 
vorced from  the  meats — they  cannot  apparently  occupy 
the  same  course  in  any  part  of  Italy.  More  cheese — a 
jardiniere  of  pomegranates,  oranges,  dates,  and  almonds. 
Wine  under  a  new  name,  but  with  the  same  delicate 
perfumed  savour  of  all  the  other  wines  they  have  drunk. 

No  more  did  the  guests  offer  any  startling  variety. 
The  same  tall  condescending  English  woman;  elderly, 
manacled  with  bracelets,  clanking  with  chains;  domi- 
neering a  plain,  red  cheek-boned,  flat-chested  daugh- 
ter obviously  needing  a  lot  of  marrying  off  on  Mamma's 
part;  dominating  also  a  nervous,  impetuous  husband 
— the  travelling  Englishman  being  much  given  to 
nervous  impetuosity.  A  few  fat,  greasy  Italians  with 
napkin  corners  planted  deeply  into  their  collars,  and 
scintillating  the  gross  joys  of  gluttony.  Two  dark- 
faced  melancholy-eyed  foreigners,  not  easily  placed  as 
to  nationality.  All  types  of  feminine  Americans.  If 
it  were  possible  to  see  only  their  eyes  they  would  be 
recognizable  as  Americans  from  their  glance  of  bold, 
alert  self-confidence  and  cheerfulness,  very  noticeable 
by  contrast  with  the  European  eye.  Also  if  one  could 
see  only  that  inevitable  ready-made  silk  bodice  the 
wearers  would  be  recognizable  as  fellow  countrywomen. 
The  man  who  manufactures  that  type  of  bodice  at 
home  must  be  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice. 

No;  the  thrill  of  the  pranzo  was  due  to  invisible 
causes. 

Behind  the  door  from  which  the  hopelessly  estranged 
meat  and  vegetables  emerged  there  arose  a  clash  and 
murmur  as  of  some  domestic  storm,  and  the  waiters 
passed  the  spinach  course  with  an  air  so  tense  and  dis- 
trait that  the  crunching  horde  felt  their  forks  strain 


156  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

with  curiosity  in  their  hands.  Even  the  fat  Italians 
paused  in  their  gorging  to  stare.  Even  the  foreigners' 
melancholy  dark  eyes  grew  interested. 

After  the  spinach  course  ensued  a  long  interval;  the 
waiters  lingering  about  with  empty  platters  and  furtive 
pretences  of  occupation,  plainly  not  daring  to  enter 
that  door,  behind  which  ever  waxed  the  loud  rumour 
of  domestic  war. 

The  interval  increased  in  length.  The  clamour  rose 
and  rose,  and  someone  went  in  search  of  the  Padrone. 

Ours  was  a  splendid  Padrone;  clothed  upon  with  a 
redingote  and  an  historic  and  romantic  dignity.  For 
had  not  Guy  de  Maupassant  mentioned  him  with  re- 
spectful affection  in  "  La  Vie  Errante  "  ?  The  memory 
of  which  artistic  appreciation  still  surrounded  him 
with  an  aura.  The  Padrone  entered  that  fateful  door 
with  calm,  stern  purpose,  while  the  guests  crumbled 
their  bread  in  patient  hope. 

The  domestic  storm  drew  breath  for  one  terrible 
moment,  then  suddenly  rose  to  the  fury  of  a  cyclone, 
and  the  Padrone  was  shot  convulsively  forth  into  our 
midst,  the  romantic  aura  hanging  in  tragic  tatters 
about  him.  Holding  to  the  wall  he  swallowed  hard 
several  times,  seeking  composure,  then  passed,  with 
knees  wabbling  nervously  beneath  the  stately  redingote, 
to  the  office,  where  could  be  witnessed  his  passionately 
protesting  gestures  and  whispers  poured  into  the  sym- 
pathetic bosom  of  the  concierge. 

The  cyclone  had  expended  itself;  the  courses  re- 
sumed their  course,  but  what  had  taken  place  behind 
that  closed  door  was  never  known.  It  remained  an- 
other Syracusan  mystery. 


ONE   DEAD  IN  THE   FIELDS  157 

The  Museo  at  Syracuse,  though  small,  is  the  best  in 
Europe,  for  here,  as  on  an  open  page,  is  written  the 
whole  history  of  the  island  of  Sicily — not  a  gap  or  a 
break  in  the  story  of  more  than  three  thousand  years; 
of  perhaps  five  thousand  years,  for  it  antedates  all  the 
certain  dates  of  history.  Here  are  cases  full  of  the 
stone  and  obsidian  tools  and  weapons  of  the  autochtho- 
nous Sikels;  their  crude  pottery,  their  rough  burial  urns, 
their  bone  ornaments,  and  feathery  wisps  of  their  woven 
stuffs.  These  are  all  curiously  like  the  relics  of  the 
Mound-builders  of  America,  now  in  the  Smithsonian 
Institution.  Apparently  the  Stone  Age  was  as  deaden- 
ingly  similar  everywhere  as  is  our  own  Age  of  Steel. 

Follows  the  rude  metal  working  of  the  Siculians, 
who,  having  some  knowledge  of  the  use  of  iron,  can 
build  boats,  and  come  across  the  narrow  strait  at  Mes- 
sina and  drive  out  the  Sikels.  So  long  ago  as  that  the 
old  process  of  "assimilation"  begins.  The  Siculians 
begin  to  work  in  colour,  to  ornament  their  pottery,  to 
dye  their  stuffs,  to  mark  their  silver  and  iron  with  rough 
chisel  patterns — patterns  and  colours  again  astonish- 
ingly like  those  of  our  own  Pueblo  Indians. 

There  are  fragments  of  Phoenician  work  here  and 
there — the  traders  from  Tyre  and  Sidon  are  beginning 
to  cruise  along  the  coast  and  barter  their  superior  wares 
with  the  inhabitants. 

All  at  once  the  arts  make  a  great  spring  upward. 
The  Greeks  have  appeared.  Rude,  archaic,  Dorian, 
these  arts  at  first,  but  strong,  and  showing  a  new  spirit. 
The  potteries  have  a  glaze,  the  patterns  grow  more  in- 
tricate, the  reliefs  show  a  plastic  striving  for  grace  and 
life,  the  ornaments  are  of  gold  as  well  as  silver  and 
bronze,  and  steel  has  appeared.  Follows  a  splendid 


158  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

flowering;  an  apogee  of  beauty  is  reached.  Vases  of 
exquisite  contours  covered  with  spirited  paintings,  pic- 
tures of  life  and  death,  of  war  and  love.  Coins  that 
are  unrivaled  in  numismatic  beauty;  struck  frequently 
with  the  quadriga  to  celebrate  the  winning  of  the  chariot 
race  at  the  Olympic  games;  a  triumph  valued  as  greatly 
by  the  Greeks  of  Sicily  as  is  the  winning  of  the  Derby 
by  English  horsemen.  Tools,  jewels,  arms,  all  adorned 
with  infinite  taste  and  skill.  Statues  of  such  subtle 
grace  and  loveliness  as  this  famous  "Nymph,"  the 
long-buried  marble  now  grown  to  tints  of  blond  pearl. 
Figurines  of  baked  clay,  reproducing  the  costumes,  the 
ornaments,  the  physiology  of  the  passing  generations — 
faces  arch,  lovely,  full  of  gay  humour.  Splendid  sar- 
cophagi, and  burial  urns  still  holding  ashes  and  cal- 
cined bones,  and  tiny  clay  reproductions  of  the  death 
masks  of  the  departed,  full  of  tender  human  individual- 
ity, or  else  heads  of  the  gods,  such  as  that  enchanting, 
tinted  and  crowned  Artemis,  that  still  lies  in  one  of  the 
great  sarcophagi  amid  a  handful  of  burned  bones. 

Punic  and  Roman  remains  begin  to  show  themselves, 
recording  that  tremendous  struggle  between  Europe 
and  Africa  for  dominion  in  the  midland  sea,  under  the 
impact  of  which  the  Greek  civilization  is  to  be  crushed. 
Byzantine  ornament  appears.  Africa  makes  another 
struggle  and  is  for  a  while  triumphant,  leaving  record 
of  the  Moorish  domination  in  damascened  arms,  in 
deep-tinted  tiles. 

The  Goths  and  Normans  fuse  with  the  Saracen  arts 
at  first,  but  soon  dominate  the  Eastern  influence  and 
shake  it  off,  developing  an  art  inferior  only  to  the  Greek. 
The  Spanish  follow,  baroque,  sumptuous,  pseudo- 
classical  All  the  story  of  all  the  conquerors  is  here. 


ONE   DEAD  IN  THE   FIELDS  159 

"Oh!"  sighs  Peripatetica.  "What  an  illustrated 
history;  I  could  go  on  turning  its  pages  for  days." 

"Well,  you'll  turn  them  alone!"  snapped  Jane, 
clutching  frantically  at  her  side,  and  adding  in  a  dread- 
ful whisper:  "There  are  fleas  hopping  all  over  these 
historical  pages.  Come  away  this  instant." 

But  they  linger  a  moment  on  the  way  out  to  look 
again  at  the  famous  headless  Venus  Landolina. 

"There  is  only  one  real  Venus,"  commented  Peri- 
patetica contemptuously.  "The  Melian.  All  the  rest 
are  only  plump  ladies  about  to  step  into  their  baths.  I 
detest  these  fat  women  with  insufficient  clothing  who 
sprawl  all  over  Europe  calling  themselves  the  goddesses 
of  love.  Goddesses  indeed!  They  look  more  like 
soft  white  chestnut  worms.  That  great  dominating, 
irresistible  lady  of  the  Louvre  is  a  deity,  if  you  like—- 
Our Lady  of  Beauty — besides,  this  little  person's  calf 
is  flat  on  the  inner  side." 

"Iss  it  not  righd  dat  her  calve  should  be  vlat  on  de 
inside?"  queried  an  elderly  Swiss,  also  looking,  and 
showing  all  her  handsome  porcelain  teeth  in  a  smile 
of  anxious  uncertainty.  "I  dink  dat  must  be  righd, 
because  Baedeker  marks  her  wid  a  ztar." 

"Don't  allow  your  opinions  to  be  unsettled  by  this 
lady's,"  consoled  Jane  sweetly.  "She  isn't  really  an 
authority.  It  would  be  wiser  perhaps  and  more  com- 
fortable to  be  guided  by  Baedeker." 

"Bud  she  has  no  head,"  grieved  the  Swiss.  "How 
can  Baedeker  mark  her  wid  a  ztar  w'en  she  has  no 
head?" 

How  indeed?  But  then,  there  is  such  a  lot  of 
body!  .  .  . 


160  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

It  is  some  days  later.  They  have  "done"  the  river 
Amapus;  have  been  rowed  among  the  towering  feath- 
ery papyrus  plants,  the  original  roots  of  which  were 
sent  to  Heiro  I.  by  Ptolemy,  and  which  still  flourish  in 
Sicily  though  all  the  parent  plants  have  vanished  out 
of  Egypt. 

They  have  looked  down  into  the  clear  depths  of  La 
Pisma's  spring.  Jane  says  it  is  less  beautiful  than  the 
Silver  Spring  in  Florida  out  which  the  Ocklawaha 
river  rises,  but  that  fountain  of  a  tropical  forest — 
transparent  as  air,  and  held  in  a  great  argent  bowl — 
has  no  history,  while  La  Pisma  was  the  playmate  of 
fair  Persephone,  and  on  seeing  her  ravished  away  by 
fiery  Pluto  melted  quite  away  into  a  flood  of  bright 
tears.  And  it  was  she  who,  having  caught  up  Perseph- 
one's dropped  veil,  floated  it  to  the  feet  of  Demeter, 
and  told  her  where  to  look  for  the  lost  daughter.  La 
Pisma  and  Anapus  her  lover  were,  too,  the  real  guar- 
dians of  Syracuse,  for  as  one  after  another  of  the  armies 
of  invading  enemies  camped  on  their  oozy  plain  they 
sapped  the  invaders'  strength,  and  blighted  their  cour- 
age with  fevers  from  the  miasmatic  breaths  exhaled 
upon  the  foes  as  they  slept. 

Jane  and  Peripatetica  have  found  another  mystery. 
Syracuse,  it  appears,  is  full  of  mysteries.  This  last  is 
known  as  the  Castle  of  Euryalus,  and  they  must  take 
horse  and  drive  to  it,  six  miles  from  the  hotel,  though 
still  within  the  walls  of  the  original  city,  once  twenty- 
two  miles  about;  shrunk  in  these  later  days  to  less 
than  three.  This  six  miles  of  pilgrimage  gives  ample 
time  to  search  the  guide-books  for  information  as  to 
this  thing  they  have  come  out  for  to  see.  But  the 
guide-books  palter,  and  shuffle  and  evade,  as  they  are 


ONE  DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS          161 

prone  to  do  about  anything  really  interesting.  Eurya- 
lus,  solid  enough  to  their  eyes  and  to  their  sense  of 
touch,  seems  as  illusive  in  history  as  the  cloudy  towers 
of  the  Fata  Morgana — now  you  see  it,  and  now  you 
don't.  It  seems  to  come  from  nowhere.  No  one  can 
tell  when  or  by  whom  it  was  built,  but  it  always  turns 
up  in  the  history  of  Syracuse  in  moments  of  stress — 
much  like  those  Christian  patron-saints  who  used  sud- 
denly to  descend  in  shining  armour  to  turn  the  tide  of 
battle.  One  hears  of  Dionysius  strengthening  it  when 
news  comes  that  the  dread  Himilcon  is  on  his  way 
from  Carthage  with  two  hundred  triremes  accompanied 
by  rafts,  galleys,  and  transports  innumerable.  Diony- 
sius makes  Euryalus  the  key  of  a  surprise  he  prepares 
for  the  Carthagenians,  for  when  the  latter  come  sailing 
into  the  harbour — "A  forest  of  black  masts  and  dark 
sails,  with  transports  filled  with  elephants  trumpeting 
at  the  smell  of  land,"  and  from  the  West  "comes  tram- 
pling across  the  plain  by  the  Helorian  road  and  the 
banks  of  the  Anapus,  the  Punic  army  300,000  strong, 
with  3,000  horse  led  by  Himilcon  in  person," — there 
stands  waiting  for  them  one  of  the  most  amazing  works 
ever  wrought  by  the  will  of  a  single  man. 

Dionysius  in  twenty  days  has  built  a  wall  three  miles 
long  barring  Himilcon's  ingress  at  the  only  weak  point. 
Seventy  thousand  of  the  inhabitants  of  Syracuse  had 
worked  at  this  building.  Forty  thousand  slaves  had 
been  in  the  Latomiae  cutting  the  blocks  of  easily  hewn 
sandstone,  which  six  thousand  oxen  carried  to  the 
wall,  while  other  armies  of  men  had  been  upon  the 
slopes  of  ^Etna  ravaging  the  oak  woods  for  huge  beams. 
When  Himilcon  comes  the  wall  is  complete. 

Then  there  are  more  appearings  and  disappearings 
11 


162  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

through  the  years,  and  suddenly  Euryalus  fills  the  fore- 
ground again.  Archimedes  is  helping  Hieronymus  to 
fortify  it  against  Marcellus — is  designing  veiled  sally 
ports,  and  oblique  apertures  from  which  his  "scor- 
pions" and  other  curious  war  engines  may  hurl  stones, 
is  placing  there  the  burning  glasses  with  which  he  will 
set  the  Roman  galleys  on  fire  by  means  of  the  sun's 
heat.  But  though  the  Carthagenians  were  terrible  the 
Roman  is  more  terrible  still,  and  in  spite  of  Archimedes 
they  get  into  Syracuse  after  a  three  years'  siege.  While 
the  furies  of  final  capture  are  raging  Archimedes  sits 
calmly  drawing  figures  upon  the  sand.  A  Roman 
soldier  rushing  by  carelessly  smears  them  with  his  foot. 
Archimedes  is  angry,  and  "uses  language."  The  sol- 
dier, angry  in  his  turn — no  doubt  "language"  in  Greek 
sounded  especially  insulting — shortens  his  sword  and 
stabs  "the  greatest  man  then  living  in  the  world." 

Marcellus  sheds  tears  when  he  hears  it,  and  buries 
the  father  of  mathematics  with  splendid  honours, 
marking  the  tombstone — as  Archimedes  had  wished— 
with  no  name,  with  only  a  sphere  and  a  cylinder.  He 
spared  Syracuse  too;  left  her  temples  and  splendours 
intact,  and  forbid  the  usual  plundering  and  massacres. 
Marcellus  was,  it  seems,  in  every  way  a  very  decent 
person,  and  Peripatetica  grieved  that  those  frigid  Ro- 
mans wouldn't  let  him  have  a  triumph  when  he  went 
home,  and  Jane  breathed  a  hope  that  he  used  more 
language  to  that  murderous  soldier.  .  .  . 

Later  comes  Cicero  to  Syracuse,  hunting  evidence 
against  Verres,  who  had,  as  pro-consul,  robbed  the 
city  of  all  the  treasures  Marcellus  had  spared,  and  the 
great  lawyer  takes  time  from  his  examination  of  wit- 
nesses to  look  out  Archimedes'  resting  place.  He  finds 


.  ONE  DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS          163 

it  overgrown  with  thistles  and  brambles,  but  recog- 
nizes it  by  the  sphere  and  cylinder,  and  sets  it  once 
more  in  order. 

"So  Tully  paused,  amid  the  wrecks  of  time, 
On  the  rude  stone  to  trace  the  truth  sublime, 
Where  at  his  feet  in  honoured  dust  disclosed 
The  immortal  Sage  of  Syracuse  reposed." 

"You  cribbed  that  from  one  of  the  guide-books," 
jeered  Jane. 

"  Of  course  I  did,"  admitted  Peripatetica  with  calm 
unblushingness.  "Do  you  imagine  I  go  around  with 
samples  of  formal  Eighteenth  Century  Pope-ry  con- 
cealed about  my  person?" 


They  are  on  their  way  to  the  theatre,  passing  by  the 
ancient  site  of  the  Forum,  which  site  is  now  a  mere 
dusty,  down-at-heels  field  where  goats  browse  and 
donkeys  graze,  and  where  squads  of  awkward  recruits 
are  being  trained  to  take  cover  behind  a  couple  of  grass 
blades,  to  fire  their  empty  rifles  with  some  pretence  at 
unanimity. 

The  road  winds  between  walled  orange  and  lemon 
groves,  in  which  contadini  are  drying  and  packing 
miles  of  pungent  golden  peel  for  transportation  to 
French  and  English  confectioners.  The  air  is  redolent 
with  it. 

Themistocles — Jane  doubts  his  sponsors  in  baptism 
having  had  any  hand  in  this,  but  the  grubby  card  he 
presented  with  so  pleasant  a  glance,  so  fine  a  gesture  at 
the  time  of  striking  a  bargain  for  the  day,  bore  it  printed 
as  plain  as  plain — Themistocles,  then,  dismounts  be- 


164  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

fore  a  small  drinking  shop  lying  at  the  foot  of  an  ele- 
vation. With  one  broad  sweep  of  his  hand  he  signi- 
fies that  he  is  making  them  free  of  history,  and  yields 
them  to  the  care  of  a  nobleman  in  gold  and  blue;  a 
nobleman  possessing  a  pleasing  manner  and  one  of 
those  plangent,  golden-strung  voices  which  the  lucky 
possessors  always  so  enjoy  using. 

The  two  demand  the  Latomia  Paradiso;  the  name 
having  seduced  their  sentimental  imaginations.  The 
peer  intimates  that  the  name  is  misleading,  but  with 
gentle  firmness  they  drop  down  the  path  which  descends 
into  the  quarries  from  which  Dionysius  hurriedly 
snatched  the  material  for  his  wall;  material  (almost  as 
easy  to  cut  as  cheese,  but  hardening  in  the  air)  which 
has  been  dug,  scooped,  and  riven  away  as  fantastically 
as  if  sculptured  by  the  capricious  flow  of  water,  leaving 
caverns,  towers,  massy  columns,  arches,  a  thousand 
freaked  shapes.  Now  all  this  is  draped  with  swaying 
curtains  of  ivy,  with  climbing  roses  heavy  with  un- 
blown buds,  with  trailing  geraniums  hanging  from 
crannies,  with  wild  flowers  innumerable.  Lemon  and 
fig  trees  grow  upon  the  quarries'  floor,  mosses  and 
ferns  carpet  the  shady  pkces,  black-green  caroba  trees 
huddle  in  neglected  corners. 

The  nobleman,  however,  is  impatient  to  show  other 
wonders.  He  leads  the  way  into  caverns  through 
whose  openings  shafts  of  sunlight  steal,  turning  the 
dusk  within  to  a  blond  gloom,  caverns  where  rope- 
makers  walk  to  and  fro  twisting  long  strands,  twirling 
wheels,  with  a  cheerful  chatter  that  booms  hollowly 
back  to  them  from  the  vaulted  darkness  over  their 
heads;  where  the  birds  who  flit  in  and  out  hear  their 
twitterings  reflected  enormously,  with  a  curious  effect; 


ONE  DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS  165 

where  even  the  sound  of  dripping  moisture  is  magni- 
fied into  a  large  solemnity. 

He  has  saved  the  best  for  the  last.  Here  an  arch 
soars  a  hundred  feet,  giving  entrance  to  a  lofty  narrow 
cave.  Where  the  sides  of  the  arch  meet  is  a  small 
channel  of  chiselled  smoothness,  ending  in  an  orifice 
through  which  a  glimpse  of  the  sky  shows  like  a  tiny 
'blue  gem.  It  is  the  Ear  of  Dionysius.  In  this  cave, 
so  the  story  runs,  the  Tyrant  confined  suspected  con- 
spirators, for  this  is  a  natural  whispering  gallery,  and 
the  lowest  of  confidential  talk  within  it  would  mount 
the  walls,  each  lightest  word  would  run  along  that 
smooth  channel,  as  through  the  tube  of  an  ear,  and 
reach  the  listener  at  the  orifice.  For  the  uneasy  Dic- 
tator knows  that  his  turbulent  Greek  subjects,  who 
cannot  rule  themselves,  are  equally  unable  to  bear 
placidly  the  rule  of  another,  and  it  would  have  been  in- 
teresting, and  at  times  exciting,  to  have  been  permitted 
to  watch  that  stern,  bent  face  as  the  rebellious  protests 
climbed  in  whispers  to  the  greedy  ear  a  hundred  feet 
above. 

A  wonderful  echo  lives  in  this  cave.  Now  it  is  plain 
why  the  guide  has  such  large  and  vibrant  tones — he 
was  chosen  because  of  that  natural  gift. 

"Addio!"  he  cries  gaily.  "  Addio"  calls  the  dark- 
ness, a  little  sadly  and  wistfully.  The  guide  sings  a 
stave,  and  all  the  dusk  is  full  of  melodious  chorus.  He 
intones  a  sonorous  verse,  and  golden  words  roll  down 
to  them  through  the  gloom. 

"Speak!  speak!"  the  nobleman  urges,  and  Jane  and 
Peripatetica  meekly  breathe  a  few  banalities  in  level 
American  tones.  Not  a  sound  returns;  their  syllables 
are  swallowed  by  the  silence. 


166  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

"Staccato!  staccato!"  remonstrates  the  guide,  and 
when  they  comply,  light  laughing  voices  vouchsafe 
answers. 

"  I  think,"  says  Peripatetica  reflectively,  as  they  leave 
the  Latomia,  "that  one  has  to  address  life  like  that  if 
one  is  to  get  a  clear  reply — to  address  it  crisply,  defi- 
nitely, with  quick  inflections.  Level,  flat  indefiniteness 
will  awake  no  echoes." 

"  'How  true'!  as  the  ladies  write  on  the  margins  of 
circulating  library  books,"  comments  Jane  with  un- 
veiled sarcasm. 

The  guide  has  lots  more  up  his  gold-braided  sleeve. 
He  opens  a  gate  and  displays  to  them  with  a  flourish 
the  largest  altar  in  the  world.  Six  hundred  feet  one 
way,  sixty  feet  the  other;  cut  partly  from  solid  rock, 
made  in  part  of  masonry.  Hiero  II.  thought  he  knew 
a  trick  of  governing  worth  any  amount  of  listening  at 
doors.  Those  who  are  fed  and  amused  are  slack  con- 
spirators. So  this  huge  altar  to  Zeus  is  built,  and  here 
every  year  he  sacrifices  450  oxen  to  the  ruler  of  heaven. 

"It  must  have  rather  run  into  money  for  him,"  says 
Jane  thoughtfully,  "but  he  probably  considered  it 
cheaper  to  sacrifice  oxen  than  be  sacrificed  himself." 

"Yes,"  says  Peripatetica,  who  has  just  been  consult- 
ing the  guide-book.  "It  must  have  been  rather  like 
the  barbecues  the  American  politicians  used  to  give  to 
their  constituents  half  a  century  ago,  for  only  the  choic- 
est bits  were  burnt  before  the  gods,  sprinkled  with  oil 
and  wine  and  sweet-smelling  spices,  and  the  populace, 
I  suppose,  carried  home  the  rest.  No  doubt  Hiero 
found  it  a  paying  investment." 

The  theatre,  when  reached,  is  found,  of  course,  to 
have  a  beautiful  situation.  All  Greek  theatres  have. 


ONE  DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS  167 

They  were  a  people  who  liked  to  open  all  the  doors  of 
enjoyment  at  once,  and  when  they  filled  this  enormous 
semicircle  (24,000  could  sit  there)  cut  from  the  living 
rock  upon  the  hillside,  they  could  not  only  listen  to  the 
rolling,  organ-like  Greek  of  the  great  poets,  and  have 
their  souls  shaken  with  the  "pity  and  terror"  of  trag- 
edy, or  laugh  at  the  gay  mockery  of  comedy,  but  by 
merely  lifting  their  eyes  they  could  look  out  upon  the 
blue  Ionian  sea,  the  smiling  flowered  land,  and  in  the 
distance  the  purple  hills  dappled  with  flying  shadows. 
In  their  time  all  the  surrounding  eminences  were 
crowned  with  great  temples,  and  behind  them — this 
was  a  contrast  very  Greek — lay  the  Street  of  Tombs. 
For  they  had  not  a  shuddering  horror  of  death,  hasten- 
ing their  departed  into  remote  isolation  from  their  own 
daily  life.  They  liked  to  pass  to  their  occupations  and 
amusements  among  the  beautiful  receptacles  made  for 
the  ashes  of  those  they  had  loved. 

In  this  theatre  Syracuse  saw  not  only  the  great 
dramas,  but  the  great  dramatists  and  poets.  ^Eschy- 
lus,  sitting  beside  Hiero  L,  saw  all  his  plays  produced 
here;  "The  jEtnaiai"  and  "The  Persians"  were  written 
for  this  stage.  Pindar  was  often  here;  so  were  Bac- 
chylides  and  Simonides,  and  a  host  of  lesser  play- 
wrights. Indeed,  no  theatre  has  ever  known  such 
famous  auditors.  Theocritus,  Pythagoras,  Sappho,  Em- 
pedocles,  Archimedes,  Plato,  Cicero,  have  all  sat  here. 

Plato  was  long  in  Syracuse;  called  by  Dionysius  to 
train  his  son  Dion,  he  labours  with  such  poor  success 
that  Dion  is  driven  from  the  power  inherited  from  his 
father,  by  the  citizens  outraged  at  the  grossness  of  his 
vices.  Before  this  fall  Plato  has  left  him  in  disgust, 
Dion  remarking  with  careless  insolence: 


168  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

"I  fear  you  will  not  speak  kindly  of  me  in  Athens." 

To  which  the  philosopher,  with  still  more  insolent 
sarcasm,  replies: 

"We  are  little  likely  to  be  so  in  want  of  a  topic  in 
Athens  as  to  speak  of  you  at  all." 

Yet  it  would  seem  as  if  no  good  effort  was  ever 
wholly  lost,  for  when  Dion,  earning  his  bread  in  exile 
as  an  obscure  schoolmaster,  is  sneeringly  asked  what 
he  ever  learned  from  Plato,  his  dignified  answer  is, 
"He  taught  me  to  bear  misfortune  with  resignation." 


Themistocles  has  conducted  them,  with  much  crack- 
ing of  his  whip,  much  irrelevant  conversation,  quite  to 
the  other  side  of  what  once  was  Syracuse,  and  has  de- 
posited them  before  a  little  low  gate  that  pierces  a  high 
wall.  Inside  this  gate  is  a  tiny  garden  cultivated  by 
two  monks  who  do  the  work  by  means  of  short-handled 
double-ended  hoes;  a  laborious-looking  Sicilian  im- 
plement. The  garden  is  full  of  pansies  growing  be- 
tween low  hedges  of  sweet-smelling  thyme  and  rose- 
mary. At  the  same  moment  there  debarks  a  carriage 
load  of  touring  Germans.  Typical  touring  Germans; 
solid,  rosy,  set  four-square  to  the  winds;  all  clinging 
to  Baedekers  encased  in  covers  of  red  and  yellow  cross 
stitch  of  Berlin  wool,  all  breathing  a  fixed  intention  of 
seeing  everything  worth  seeing  in  the  thorough-going 
German  fashion.  The  monks  openly  squabble  as  to 
the  division  of  the  parties  who  have  come  to  see  the 
church  and  the  catacombs,  and  eventually  the  big, 
shaggy,  red-haired  one,  who  might  be  some  ancient 
savage  Gaul  come  to  life,  sullenly  carries  off  the  Teu- 
tons. It  is  somewhat  of  a  shock  to  Jane  and  Peripate- 


ONE  DEAD  IN  THE   FIELDS  169 

tica  when  their  slim,  supple,  handsome  Sicilian  explains 
to  them  that  this  contest  has  its  reason  not  in  their  per- 
sonal charm,  but  is  owing  to  a  reluctance  to  guide  the 
hated  Tedeschi. 

There  is  something  inexplicable  in  this  universal  un- 
popularity of  the  Teuton  in  Italy.  Germany  has  been 
dotingly  sentimental  about  Italy  for  generations. 

"Kennst  du  das  Land" 

has  hovered  immanent  on  every  lip  from  beyond  the 
Rhine  ever  since  the  days  of  Goethe.  They  passion- 
ately study  her  language,  her  literature,  her  monu- 
ments, and  her  history.  They  make  pilgrimages  to 
worship  at  all  her  shrines,  pouring  in  reverent  Pan- 
Germanic  hordes  across  the  Alps  to  do  it,  and  despite 
their  extreme  and  skilful  frugality  they  must  neces- 
sarily leave  in  the  Peninsula  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
their  hard-earned,  laboriously  hoarded  marks,  which 
they  have  not  grudged  to  spend  in  the  service  of  beauty. 
Yet  Italy  seems  possessed  of  a  sullen  repugnance  to  the 
entire  race. 

"Tedeschi!"  hisses  the  monk.  "Tutto  'Ja!  Ja! 
W undersch on!'"  with  a  deliriously  funny  imitation  of 
their  accent  and  gestures,  as  he  steers  swiftly  around  a 
corner  to  prevent  the  two  parties  fusing  into  one. 

The  church  of  San  Giovanni  is,  of  course,  founded 
upon  a  Greek  temple — most  Sicilian  churches  are,  and 
— of  all  places! — this  one  stands  upon  a  ruin  of  a  temple 
of  Bacchus — the  fragments  of  which  poke  up  all  through 
the  tiny  garden.  The  church,  equally,  of  course,  has 
been  Eighteenth  Centuried,  but  happily  not  wholly; 
remaining  a  great  wheel  window,  and  beautiful  bits 
here  and  there  of  Twelfth  Century  Gothic  in  the  outer 


170  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

walls,  though  the  interior  is  in  the  usual  dusty  and 
neglected  gaunt  desuetude.  The  whole  place  is  in  de- 
cay, even  the  attendant  monastery  is  crumbling,  the 
number  of  monks  shrunk  to  a  mere  handful,  despite 
the  fact  that  this  is  a  spot  of  special  sanctity,  for  when 
they  descend  into  the  massive  chapel  of  the  crypt  there 
is  pointed  out  to  them  the  little  altar  before  which  Saint 
Paul  preached  when  he  was  in  Syracuse. 

"Of  course,  St.  Paul  was  here,"  said  Jane.  "Every- 
body who  was  anybody  came  to  Syracuse  sooner  or 
later — including  ourselves." 

The  guide  is  firm  as  to  the  altar  having  stood  in  this 
very  chapel  when  that  remarkable  Hebrew  poured  out 
to  the  Syracusans  his  strange  new  message  of  democ- 
racy, but  this  is  clearly  the  usual  fine  monkish  superi- 
ority to  cramping  probabilities,  for  such  rib-vaultings 
as  these  were  as  yet  undreamed  of  by  the  architects  of 
Paul's  day. 

The  altar  is  Greek,  and  no  doubt  was  standing  in 
the  fane  of  Bacchus  when  the  Jew  spoke  by  it.  The 
Greeks  were  interested  and  tolerant  about  new  relig- 
ions, and  the  life  and  death  which  Paul  described  would 
hardly  have  seemed  strange  to  them,  spoken  in  that 
place.  That  birth  and  death,  the  blood  turned  to 
wine,  the  sacred  flesh  eaten  in  hope  of  regeneration, 
having  so  many  and  such  curious  resemblances  to  the 
legends,  and  to  the  worship  of  the  Vine  God  celebrated 
on  that  very  spot.  "  At  Thebes  alone,"  had  said  Soph- 
ocles, speaking  of  the  birth  of  Bacchus,  "  mortal  women 
bear  immortal  gods."  The  violent  death,  the  descent 
into  hell,  the  resurrection,  were  all  familiar  to  them, 
and  what  a  natural  echo  would  be  found  in  their  hearts 
to  the  saying,  "I  am  the  true  Vine."  .  .  . 


ONE   DEAD   IN  THE   FIELDS  171 

The  monk  only  smiles  bitterly  when  it  is  demanded 
of  him  to  explain  why  a  spot  of  so  reverent  an  associa- 
tion should  be  abandoned  to  dust  and  decay,  and  to 
the  interest  of  curious  tourists,  when  the  mere  apocry- 
phal vision  of  an  hysterical  peasant  girl  should  draw 
hordes  of  miracle-seeking  pilgrims  to  Lourdes. 

Perhaps  there  was  something  typical  in  that  an- 
guished Christ  painted  upon  the  great  flat  wooden 
crucifix  that  hung  over  the  altar  in  the  crypt;  a  Christ 
fading  slowly  into  a  mere  grey  shadow;  the  dim, 
hardly  visible  ghost  of  a  once  living  agony.  .  .  . 

The  monk  goes  before,  the  flickering  candle  which 
he  shades  with  his  fingers  throwing  a  fan  of  yellow  rays 
around  his  tonsured  head.  These  are  the  Catacombs 
of  Syracuse. 

"On  every  hand  the  roads  begin." 

Roads  underground,  these,  leading  away  endlessly 
into  darkness.  At  long  intervals  they  widen  into 
lofty  domed  chapels  rudely  hewn,  as  is  all  this  place, 
directly  from  the  rock.  Here  and  there  a  narrow  shaft 
is  cut  upward  through  the  earth,  letting  in  faint  gleams 
of  sunshine  through  a  fringe  of  grass  and  ferns,  show- 
ing sometimes  an  oxalis  drooping  its  pale  little  golden 
face  to  peer  over  the  shaft's  edge  into  the  gloom  below. 
And  in  all  these  roads — miles  and  miles  of  roads,  ex- 
tending as  far  as  Catania  it  is  said;  roads  under  roads 
three  tiers  deep — and  in  all  these  roads  and  chapels 
are  only  open  graves.  Graves  in  the  floor  beneath 
one's  feet;  graves  in  every  inch  of  the  walls;  graves 
over  graves,  graves  behind  graves.  Great  family 
graves  cut  ten  feet  back  into  the  rock,  containing  nar- 
row niches  for  half  a  dozen  bodies — graves  where  four 


172  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

generations  have  slept  side  by  side.  Graves  that  are 
mere  shallow  scoopings  hardly  more  than  three  spans 
in  length,  where  newborn  babies  must  have  slept  alone. 
Tombs  innumerable  beyond  reckoning,  all  hewn  from 
the  solid  rock,  and  each  and  all  vacant.  An  incredibly 
vast  city  of  the  dead  from  which  all  the  dead  inhabi- 
tants have  departed. 

This  is  the  crowning  mystery  of  mysterious  Syra- 
cuse. Who  were  this  vast  army  of  the  buried?  And 
where  have  their  dead  bodies  gone?  .  .  .  Christians, 
everyone  says. 

"But  why,"  clamours  Peripatetica,  "should  Chris- 
tians have  had  these  peculiar  mole-like  habits?" 

The  monk  merely  shrugs. 

"Oh,  I  know,"  she  goes  on  quickly  before  Jane  can 
get  her  mouth  open.  "Persecution  is  the  explanation 
always  given,  but  will  you  tell  me  how  you  can  suc- 
cessfully persecute  a  population  of  this  size?  There 
must  be  half  a  million  of  graves,  at  least,  in  this  place, 
and  there  would  have  to  be  a  good  many  living  to  bury 
the  dead,  and  Syracuse  in  its  best  days  hadn't  a  mil- 
lion inhabitants.  Now,  you  can't  successfully  mar- 
tyrize nine-tenths  of  the  population,  even  if  it  is  as 
meek  and  sheep-like  as  the  early  Christians  pretended 
to  be." 

"They  didn't  all  die  at  once,"  suggests  Jane  help- 
fully. "This  took  years." 

"  I  should  think  it  did !  Years  ?  It  took  generations, 
or  else  the  Christians  died  like  flies,  and  proved  that 
piety  was  dreadfully  undermining  to  the  health.  No 
wonder  the  pagans  wouldn't  accept  anything  so  fatal. 
But  populations  as  large  as  this  one  must  have  been 
to  furnish  so  many  dead,  don't  go  on  burrowing  under- 


ONE  DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS          173 

ground  for  generations.  They  come  out  and  impose 
their  beliefs  upon  the  rest.  And,  besides,  how  can  the 
stories  of  their  worshipping  and  burying  in  secret  be 
true  when  the  mass  of  material  taken  out  of  these  ex- 
cavations would  have  to  be  put  somewhere?  And 
how  could  the  presence  or  the  removal  of  all  that 
refuse  stone  escape  attention?  The  persecuted  Chris- 
tian theory  doesn't  explain  the  mystery." 

Even  Peripatetica  had  to  pause  sometimes  for  breath, 
and  then  Jane  got  her  innings. 

"Equally  mysterious,  in  my  opinion,"  she  said,  "is 
the  rifling  of  all  these  graves.  The  monk  tells  me  '  the 
Saracens  did  it/  but  the  Saracens  were  in  Syracuse  less 
than  two  hundred  years,  and  of  all  these  myriad  graves 
only  two  or  three  have  been  found  intact,  and  these 
two  or  three  were  graves  beneath  graves.  Every  other 
one  for  sixty  miles,  from  the  krgest  to  the  smallest,  has 
been  opened  and  entirely  emptied.  The  Saracen  pop- 
ulation in  Syracuse  was  never  very  large.  It  consisted 
in  greater  part  of  the  ruling  classes.  The  bulk  of  the 
people  were  natives  and  Christians,  who  would  regard 
this  grave-rifling  as  the  horridest  sacrilege,  and  if  the 
Saracens  undertook  alone  this  enormous  task  they 
would  have  had,  even  in  two  hundred  years,  time  for 
nothing  else.  The  opening  of  the  graves  is  as  strange 
a  puzzle  as  the  making  of  them." 

"Perhaps  some  last  trump  was  blown  over  Syra- 
cuse alone,"  hazarded  Peripatetica,  "and  all  the  dead 
here  rose  and  left  their  graves  behind  them  empty." 

"Come  up  into  the  air  and  sunlight,"  said  Jane. 
"  Your  mind  shows  the  need  of  it." 

At  the  little  gate  sat  one  of  the  monastery  dependents, 
whose  perquisite  was  a  permission  to  sell  post-cards, 


174  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

and  such  coins  and  bits  of  pottery  as  he  could  retrieve  by 
grubbing  in  the  rubbish  of  the  empty  graves.  He  had 
a  few  tiny  earthenware  lamps,  marked  with  a  cross 
and  still  smoke-blackened,  some  so-called  tear  jugs, 
and  one  or  two  small  clay  masks  which,  from  the  closed 
eyelids  and  smooth  sunken  contours,  must  have  been 
modelled  in  miniature  from  real  death  masks.  Among 
these  they  found  Arsinoe — or  so  they  named  her — 
whose  face  was  touched  with  that  strange,  secret  arch- 
ness, that  sweet  smiling  scorn  so  often  seen  on  faces 
one  day  dead.  The  broad  brow  with  its  drooping  hair, 
the  full  tender  lips  so  instinct  with  vivid  personality, 
went  with  them,  and  became  to  them  like  the  record 
of  some  one  seen  long  ago  and  dimly  remembered, 
though  the  lovely  benignant  original  must  have  been 
mere  dust  of  dust  for  more  than  a  thousand  years. 


A  nun  in  a  faded  blue  gown  has  been  showing  them 
the  relics  of  Santa  Lucia.  She  has  also  been  telling 
them  how  the  Saint,  when  a  young  man  admired  her 
eyes,  snatched  them  out  of  her  head  with  her  own  hands 
and  handed  them  to  the  young  man  on  a  plate. 

"What  a  very  rude  and  unpleasant  thing  to  do!" 
comments  Jane  in  English.  "But  invariably  saints 
seem  so  lamentably  deficient  in  amiability  and  social 
charm." 

The  nun  unlocks  the  gate  of  the  Cappucini  Latomia, 
and  Jane  and  Peripatetica  descend  the  long  stair  cut 
in  the  rocks.  They  are  seeking  the  place  where  the 
remnant  of  that  army  Alcibiades  so  skilfully  intro- 
duced into  Catania,  finally  perished. 

They  have  been  reading  tales  of  the  Athenians'  long 


ONE   DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS          175 

siege  of  Syracuse,  of  their  final  frightful  despairing 
struggle,  so  full  of  anguish,  terror,  and  fierce  courage 
—"when  Greek  met  Greek" — and  they  have  come  to 
look  at  the  spot  where  those  seven  thousand  unhappy 
prisoners  finally  found  an  end.  When  they  were  driven 
into  this  quarry  they  were  all  that  remained  of  the 
tremendous  expedition  which  Athens  had  drained  her 
best  blood  to  send.  Alcibiades  had  fled  long  ago,  and 
was  in  exile.  Nicias  and  Demosthenes,  who  had  sur- 
rendered them,  were  now  dead;  fallen  on  their  own 
swords.  The  harbour  of  Syracuse  was  strewn  with  the 
charred  wrecks  of  their  fleet.  The  marshes  of  Anapus 
were  rotting  with  their  comrades,  the  fountain  of  Cyane 
choked  with  them.  They  themselves  were  wounded 
to  a  man,  shuddering  with  fevers,  starving,  demoral- 
ised with  long  fighting  and  the  horrible  final  debdcle 
when  they  were  thrust  all  together  into  this  Latomia; 
not  as  now  a  glorious  garden  with  thyme  and  mint  and 
rosemary  beneath  their  feet,  ivy-hung,  full  of  groves 
and  orchards,  but  raw,  glaring,  shaled  with  chipped 
stone,  the  staring  yellow  sides  towering  smoothly  up 
for  a  hundred  feet  to  the  burning  blue  of  the  Sicilian 
sky.  There  in  that  waterless  furnace  for  seventy  days 
they  died  and  died.  Died  of  wounds,  of  thirst,  of 
starvation;  died  of  the  poisonings  of  those  already 
dead. 

And  the  populace  of  Syracuse  came  day  by  day, 
holding  lemons  to  their  noses,  to  look  down  at  them 
curiously,  until  there  was  not  one  movement,  not  one 
sound  from  any  one  of  the  seven  thousand. 

There  is  but  one  human  gleam  in  the  whole  demon- 
iacal story — a  touch  characteristically  Greek.  Some 
of  the  prisoners  had  beguiled  the  tedium  of  dying  by 


176  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

chanting  the  noble  choruses  of  Euripides'  newest  play, 
which  Syracuse  had  not  yet  heard,  and  these  had  been 
at  once  drawn  up  from  among  their  fellows  and  treated 
with  every  kindness.  They  were  entreated  to  repeat 
as  much  as  they  could  remember  of  the  poet's  lines 
again  and  again,  and  were  finally  sent  back  to  Athens 
with  presents  and  much  honour. 

Not  a  trace  of  the  tragedy  remains.  The  only  rec- 
ord of  death  now  in  those  lovely  wild,  deep-sunken 
gardens  is  a  banal  monument  to  Mazzini,  and  a  tomb 
hollowed  out  of  the  wall  in  one  of  the  caves.  A  tomb 
closed  with  a  marble  slab,  upon  which  was  cut  an 
epitaph  telling,  in  the  pompous  formal  language  of  that 
day,  of  the  young  American  naval  lieutenant  who  died 
here  suddenly  on  his  ship  in  the  first  decade  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  and  because  he  was  a  Protestant, 
and  therefore  could  not  occupy  any  Catholic  grave- 
yard, was  laid  to  rest  alone  in  this  place  of  hideous 
memories. 

Poor  kd!  Sleeping  so  far  from  his  own  people,  and 
thrust  away  here  by  himself,  since  he  must,  of  course, 
not  expect  to  lie  near  those  who  had  been  baptised  with 
a  different  motion  of  the  fingers.  Seeing  which  isola- 
tion Peripatetica  quoted  that  amused  saying  of  an 
ironic  old  Pagan  world,  "Behold,  how  these  Christians 
love  one  another!" 


It  is  the  terrace  of  the  Villa  Politi.  They  have 
finally  forgiven  the  villa,  and  have  climbed  up  here 
from  the  Latomia  to  sit  on  its  lovely  terrace,  to  drink 
tea  and  eat  the  honey  of  Hybla,  to  look  down  on  one 
side  into  the  blossom-hung  depths  of  the  Athenians' 


ONE  DEAD  IN  THE  FIELDS          177 

prison,  on  the  other  out  to  the  mauve  and  silver  of  the 
twilight  sea. 

" Peripatetica,"  says  Jane  with  great  firmness,  "I 
am  suffering  from  an  indigestion  of  history.  I  am 
going  away  somewhere.  All  these  spirits  of  the  past 
block  up  the  place  so  that  I've  no  freedom  of  move- 
ment. It's  an  oppression  to  feel  that  every  time  one 
puts  a  foot  down  it's  in  the  track  of  thousands  and 
thousands  of  dead  feet,  and  that  one's  stirring  up  the 
dust  of  bones  with  every  step  we  take.  Everything  we 
look  at  is  covered  so  thick  with  layer  on  layer  of  pas- 
sion and  pain  that  I've  got  an  historic  heartache.  / 
leave  to-morrow." 

Peripatetica  dind't  answer  at  first.  She  was  looking 
out  over  the  dusky  sea,  from  which  breathed  a  soft 
slow  wind. 

The  change  had  come  while  they  were  in  the  La- 
tomia;  had  come  suddenly.  That  bleak  unkindness 
in  the  atmosphere — of  which  they  were  always  con- 
scious even  in  the  sun — had  all  at  once  disappeared. 
Even  though  the  sun  was  gone  a  mild  sweetness  seemed 
to  exhale  from  the  earth,  as  from  a  heart  at  last  con- 
tent. 

"  Jane,"  said  Peripatetica,  turning  shining  eyes  upon 
her,  "Persephone  has  returned.  Let  us  go  to  Enna 
and  meet  her!" 


12 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  RETURN  OF  PERSEPHONE 

"God's  three  chief  gifts,  Man's  bread  and  oil  and  wine." 

No  doubt  the  usual  things  that  happen  to  travellers 
happened  to  Jane  and  Peripatetica  at  Enna-Castro- 
giovanni,  and  on  their  way  to  it.  Things  annoying 
and  amusing,  tiresome  or  delightful,  but  they  have  no 
memory  of  these  things,  all  lesser  matters  having  been 
swallowed  up  in  the  final  satisfaction  of  their  quest. 

Memory  is  an  artist  who  works  in  mosaic,  and  all 
the  fantastic  jumble  and  contrast  of  the  experiences  of 
travel  she  heaps  pell-mell  together  in  her  bag.  Bits  of 
sights  but  half  seen,  but  half  understood;  vague  mem- 
ories of  other  things  seen  before  and  seemingly  but 
slightly  related  to  these  new  impressions,  mere  faint 
associations  but  partly  realised,  along  with  keen  emo- 
tions and  strong  pleasures;  all  tumbled  in  together 
and  rubbing  corners  with  petty  vexations,  small  incon- 

178 


THE  RETURN   OF  PERSEPHONE       179 

veniences,  practical  details.  Memory  gathers  them 
all  without  discrimination  and  carries  them  along  with 
her,  a  most  unsatisfactory-looking  mess -at  first  sight, 
out  of  which  it  would  seem  nothing  much  could  be 
made.  But  give  her  time.  While  one's  attention  is 
occupied  with  other  matters  she  is  busy — sorting,  ar- 
ranging, rejecting  here,  adding  there.  Recollections 
that  bulked  large  at  first  she  often  files  down  to  a  mere 
point;  much  that  appeared  but  dull  rubbish  with  no 
colour  she  finds  valuable  when  pushed  into  the  back- 
ground, because  its  neutral  tones  serve  to  bring  out 
more  clearly  the  outlines  of  the  design.  Dark  bits  are 
skilfully  employed  for  the  sake  of  the  contrast,  and  to 
intensify  the  warm  tones  of  richer  fragments.  The 
shadowy  associations  give  body  and  modelling  to  im- 
pressions otherwise  flat  and  ineffective.  All  at  once 
the  picture  is  seen;  a  complete  delineation  of  an  epi- 
sode, taking  form  and  warmth,  and  vivid  life;  and 
over  the  whole  she  spreads  the  magic  bloom  of  dis- 
tance, which  transforms  the  crude  materials,  hides  the 
joinings  of  the  mosaic,  and  makes  of  it  a  treasure  of  the 
soul. 

Something  of  this  sort  she  did  for  Castrogiovanni. 
'Tis  but  an  impressionist  picture.  They  only  see,  look- 
ing back  to  it,  two  great,  divine  shadows  breathing 
such  passion  and  pain,  such  essential,  heart-stirring 
loveliness  that  the  eye  hardly  observes  the  wreathed 
border  about  the  picture,  a  border  which  serves  merely 
as  a  frame  for  those  two  significant  figures  revived  from 
the  dreams  of  primitive  man. 

Here  is  an  incident  taken  from  the  unimportant 
frame  of  the  picture.  .  .  . 

Jane  and  Peripatetica  are  in  the  train.    It  seems 


180  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

quaint  to  be  finding  one's  way  to  the  "  Plutonian  Shore" 
in  a  little  puffing,  racketting  Sicilian  train.  To  be 
properly  in  the  picture  they  should  have  been  included 
in  a  band  of  pilgrim  shepherds  piping  in  the  hills  as 
they  wander  upward  to  the  great  shrine  of  Demeter, 
to  give  thanks  for  the  increase  of  their  flocks,  to  offer 
her  white  curds,  and  goat  cheeses,  and  the  snowy  wool 
of  washed  fleeces.  Pilgrims  who  are  weeks  upon  the 
road;  climbing  higher  and  higher  each  day  through 
the  steady  sunshine,  and  sleeping  at  night  under  the 
large  stars,  with  the  little  olive-wood  fire,  that  cooked 
the  evening  meal,  winking  and  smouldering  beside 
them  in  the  dewy  darkness.  Resting  here  and  there 
at  the  Greek  farms,  where  new  pilgrims  are  waiting  to 
add  themselves  to  the  pious  band. 

Jane,  who  consults  her  Theocritus  oftener  in  Sicily 
than  her  Baedeker — for  she  says  she  finds  that  Theo- 
critus has  on  the  whole  a  better  literary  style — is  the 
one  who  suggests  this  idyllic  alternative. 

"Just  listen  to  him!"  she  cries.  "This  would  be 
travel  really  worth  while  recording.  He  is  telling  of 
just  such  a  journey,  and  of  the  pause  at  one  of  the  hill 
farms : 

"'So  I,  and  Eucritus,  and  the  fair  Amyntichus, 
turned  aside  into  the  house  of  Phrasidamus,  and  lay 
down  with  delight  in  beds  of  sweet  tamarisk  and  fresh 
cuttings  from  the  vines,  strewed  on  the  ground.  Many 
poplars  and  elm  trees  were  waving  over  our  heads,  and 
not  far  off  the  running  of  the  sacred  water  from  the 
cave  of  the  nymphs  warbled  to  us;  in  the  shimmering 
grass  the  sunburnt  grasshoppers  were  busy  with  their 
talk,  and  from  afar  the  owl  cried  softly  out  of  the 
tangled  thorns  of  the  blackberry.  The  larks  were  sing- 


THE  RETURN  OF  PERSEPHONE       181 

ing  and  the  hedge  birds,  and  the  turtle  dove  moaned; 
the  bees  flew  round  and  round  the  fountains,  murmur- 
ing softly.  The  scent  of  late  summer  and  the  fall  of 
the  year  was  everywhere;  the  pears  fell  from  the  trees 
at  our  feet,  and  apples  in  number  rolled  down  at  our 
sides,  and  the  young  plum  trees  bent  to  the  earth  with 
the  weight  of  their  fruit. 

"  'The  wax, four  years  old,  was  loosed  from  the  heads 
of  the  wine  jars.  O!  nymphs  of  Castalia,  who  dwell 
on  the  steeps  of  Parnassus,  tell  me,  I  pray  you,  was  it 
a  draught  like  this  that  the  aged  Chiron  placed  before 
Hercules,  in  the  stony  cave  of  Phulus?  Was  it  nectar 
like  this  that  made  that  mighty  shepherd  on  Anapus' 
shore,  Polyphemus,  who  flung  the  rocks  upon  Ulysses' 
ships,  dance  among  his  sheep-folds  ?  A  cup  like  this  ye 
poured  out  now  upon  the  altar  of  Demeter,  who  pre- 
sides over  the  threshing  floor.  May  it  be  mine  once 
more  to  dig  my  big  winnowing-fan  through  her  heaps 
of  corn;  and  may  I  see  her  smile  upon  me,  holding 
poppies  and  handfuls  of  corn  in  her  two  hands!'" 


Instead  of  being  accompanied  on  their  arcadian 
journey  by  Eucritus  and  the  fair  Amyntichus,  they  have 
as  companions  in  the  little  carriage  of  the  Regie  Fer- 
rovia  the  two  dark  foreigners  from  Syracuse,  upon 
whose  nationality  they  have  specukted  at  idle  moments. 
They  prove  to  be  Poles.  Two  gentlemen  from  Cra- 
cow, escaped  for  a  moment  from  its  snows  to  make  a 
little  "giro"  in  the  Sicilian  sunshine. 

Conversation  develops  around  ^Etna — of  all  places! 
Peripatetica  catches  sight  of  it,  as  the  train  rounds  a 
curve,  sees  it  suddenly  looming  against  the  sky,  a  glit- 


182  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

tering  cone  of  silver  swimming  upon  a  base  of  misty 
hyacinth-blue.  By  a  gesture  she  calls  everyone's  at- 
tention to  this  new  and  charming  pose  of  that  ever 
spectacular  mountain. 

Jane  glances  up  from  her  book  and  signifies  a  con- 
descending approval,  but  the  sight  has  a  most  startling 
and  electrifying  effect  upon  the  Poles.  They  miss,  in 
their  enthusiasm,  flinging  themselves  from  the  carriage 
window  merely  by  a  hair's  breadth,  and  crying,  "^Etna! 
>£tna!"  with  passionate  satisfaction,  not  only  solemnly 
clasp  hands  with  one  another,  but  also  grasp  and  shake 
the  limply  astonished  hands  of  Jane  and  Peripatetica. 
Transpires  that  the  foreigners  have  been  three  weeks 
in  Sicily  without  once  having  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
ever  present,  ever  dominant  mountain,  since,  with 
sulky  coquetry,  whenever  they  were  within  sight  it 
promptly  hid  in  veils  of  mist,  and  now  they  are  bound 
for  Cracow,  via  Palermo,  facing  uneasily  the  confession 
at  home  of  having  been  to  the  play  and  missed  seeing 
the  star. 

They  hang  from  the  window  in  eager  endeavour  to 
cram  all  lost  opportunities  into  one,  and  rend  the 
heavens  with  lamentations  when  the  carriage  comes  to 
rest  immediately  opposite  a  tiny  station  whose  solid 
minuteness  is  sufficient  to  blot  from  sight  all  that  dis- 
tant majesty. 

"It  is  like  life,"  the  taller  foreigner  wails,  sinking 
back  baffled  from  an  attempt  to  pierce  the  obdurate 
masonry  with  a  yearning  eye.  "  One  little  ugly  emotion 
close  by  can  shut  out  from  one's  sight  all  the  loftiest 
beauties  of  existence!" 

This  fine  generalization  gathers  acuity  from  the  fact 
that  a  sharp  turn  soon  after  leaving  the  station  piles 


THE   RETURN  OF  PERSEPHONE       183 

up  elevations  that  quickly  rob  them  of  their  long-sought 
opportunity,  but  for  the  rest  of  the  time  that  the  paths 
of  the  four  lie  together  the  Poles  insist  upon  attributing 
to  the  direct  intervention  of  Jane  and  Peripatetica  the 
wiping  of  this  blot  from  their  travelling  'scutcheon — an 
attitude  which  Jane  and  Peripatetica  find  both  sooth- 
ing and  refreshing,  and  they  affect  a  large  familiarity 
and  possessiveness  with  the  Volcano,  which  the  Poles 
bear  with  polite  and  grateful  respect;  the  more  so,  no 
doubt,  as  the  two  seekers  possess — as  Americans — a 
novelty  almost  more  startling  and  intense  than  ^Etna. 
The  gentlemen  from  Cracow  have  never  met  Americans 
until  now,  and  make  no  attempt  to  disguise  the  exhila- 
ration of  so  unwonted  a  spectacle — confessing  that  in 
their  turn  they  too  have  been  speculating  upon  the 
racial  identity  of  "the  foreign  ladies,"  whose  national- 
ity they  were  unable  to  guess.  They  are  consumed 
with  an  inexhaustible  curiosity  to  get  the  "natives'  ' 
point  of  view,  and  exchange  secret  glances  of  surprise 
and  pleasure  at  the  exhibition  of  human  intelligence 
in  a  people  so  remote  from  Cracow.  When  the  neces- 
sary change  of  train  detaches  them  from  their  eager 
investigations  Peripatetica  is  still  futilely  engaged  in 
her  persistent  endeavour  to  combat  in  the  European 
mind  its  strange  delusion  as  to  the  real  relations  of  the 
sexes  in  her  own  land. 

.  .  .  "No;  the  American  man  in  no  respect  resem- 
bles the  Sicilian  donkey  ...  no;  he  does  not  ordi- 
narily spend  his  life  toiling  humbly  under  the  intoler- 
able loads  laid  upon  him  by  his  imperious  mate.  .  .  . 
No;  he  is  not  a  dull  unintelligent  drudge  wholly  un- 
worthy of  the  radiant  beings  who  permit  him  to  sur- 
round them  with  an  incredible  luxury.  .  . '.  No;  the 


184  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

American  woman  is  not  his  intellectual  superior.  In 
everything  of  real  practical  importance  he  is  immensely 
the  superior.  .  .  .  No;  he  isn't  this.  .  .  .  No;  he 
isn't  that.  ...  He  isn't  any  one  of  the  things  the  Euro- 
pean thinks  he  is  and — good  bye!" 

The  mountains  all  this  while  have  been  peaking  up; 
mounting,  climbing,  rolling  more  wildly,  and  at  last 
two  of  them  soar  splendidly,  sweep  up  close  on  to 
three  thousand  feet  into  the  sky  .  .  .  Castrogiovanni 
and  Calascibetta,  and  the  train  drops  Jane  and  Peri- 
patetica  at  their  feet. 

Memory  has  cast  out,  or  has  pushed  into  the  back- 
ground, the  long  weary  jolting  up  to  the  wild  little  wind- 
swept town;  makes  no  record  of  the  hotel  or  the  fellow 
tourists;  has  jotted  down  a  certain  straight  wild  beauty 
in  the  inhabitants,  who  have  eagle-like  Saracen  pro- 
files, but  grey  Norman  eyes.  Has  left  well  in  the  fore- 
ground a  dark  castle,  and  a  cluster  of  half-ruined 
towers.  All  else  of  modern  details  she  has  rejected, 
except  a  great  wash  of  blue,  a  vast  vista  of  tumbling 
broken  landscape,  huge  and  stern,  for  she  has  been 
busy  with  a  picture  of  the  past;  building  up  an  imag- 
ination of  vanished  gods  moving  about  their  mighty 
affairs,  playing  out  Olympian  dramas  in  this  lofty  land. 
Here  is  the  very  centre  of  the  God's-land,  the  "um- 
bilicus Sicilian,"  the  Key  of  Sicily,  Enna  "the  inex- 
pugnable," the  strongest  natural  fortress  in  the  world, 
which  no  one  ever  took  except  by  treachery;  which  the 
Saracens  besieged  in  vain  for  thirty-one  years,  and 
when  they  finally  got  it,  through  a  treason,  the  Nor- 
mans in  their  turn  could  not  dislodge  them  until  all 
Sicily  had  been  theirs  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and 
then  only  through  another  betrayal.  In  the  great 


THE  RETURN  OF  PERSEPHONE       185 

skve  war  Eunus,  the  serf,  held  it  against  the  whole 
power  of  Rome  for  two  years  until  he  too  was  betrayed. 

Broken  and  wild  as  is  the  land  it  is  still  cultivated; 
the  olive  still  climbs  up  to  where  the  clouds  come 
down,  but  where  are  the  magnificent  forests,  the  won- 
der and  joy  of  antiquity?  Where  the  brooks  and 
streams  and  lakes,  whose  dropping  waters  sang  all 
through  the  records  of  the  elder  world?  Where  are 
those  fields  so  blessed  by  Demcter  that  they  offered  to 
the  hands  of  men  illimitable  floods  of  golden  grain? 
Where  are  the  vines  that  wreathed  the  mountains' 
brows  with  green  and  purple  grapes,  as  if  it  had  been 
the  brow  of  Dionysius  the  wine  god  ?  Where,  too,  are 
the  meadows  so  thick  with  flowers  that  for  the  richness 
of  the  perfume  the  hounds  could  not  hold  the  scent  of 
the  game  ?  Meadows  where  the  bees  wantoned  in  such 
honeyed  delight  that  the  air  vibrated  with  their  mur- 
muring as  with  the  vibrating  of  multitudinous  harp 
strings?  .  .  . 

Listen  to  the  story,  which,  when  it  was  told  was  only 
a  prophecy  and  a  warning,  but  a  warning  never  heeded. 

Erysicthon  cuts  down  the  grove  sacred  to  Demeter. 
A  grove  so  thick  "that  an  arrow  could  hardly  pass 
through;  its  pines  and  fruit  trees  and  tall  poplars 
within,  and  the  water  like  pale  gold  running  through 
the  conduits."  One  of  the  poplars  receives  the  first 
stroke,  and  Demeter,  hearing  the  ringing  of  the  axe, 
appears,  stern  and  awful,  hooded  and  veiled,  and 
carrying  poppies  in  her  hand.  To  the  ravager  of  her 
groves  she  threatens  a  divine  curse  of  an  everlasting 
thirst,  of  an  insatiable,  unsatisfied  hunger,  and  the 
workmen,  awed,  depart,  leaving  the  axes  sticking  in 
the  trees,  but  Erysicthon  drives  them  to  their  task 


186  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

again  with  blows,  and  soon  the  grove  is  levelled,  and 
the  heat  of  the  day  enters  where  once  all  was  sweet 
shade.  Erysicthon  laughs  at  the  futile  curse  of  the 
goddess;  he  has  had  his  will  and  nothing  has  hap- 
pened. The  water  still  runs  and  he  can  slake  his 
drought,  but  the  water  escapes  as  he  stoops  for  it, 
sinking  into  the  earth  before  his  eyes,  leaving  upon  his 
lips  only  choking  dust.  No  one  can  safely  ignore  the 
warnings  of  the  gods,  and  he  wanders,  whipped  by  in- 
tolerable longings,  and  dies  dreadfully,  raving  of  his 
own  folly. 

Neither  Greeks,  Romans,  Saracens,  nor  Norman 
heed  this  parable,  told  ages  and  ages  before  the  mean- 
ing of  the  loss  of  forests  was  understood.  All  over  the 
land  the  clothing  of  oaks,  chestnuts,  and  pines  was 
stripped  from  the  hills,  and  slowly  but  surely  the  curse 
of  Demeter  has  turned  it  into  a  place  of  thirst.  To- 
day less  than  five  per  cent  of  the  whole  island  con- 
tains timber,  and  these  high  lands,  these  "fields  which 
in  the  days  of  the  Greeks  returned  one  hundred  times 
the  amount  of  seed  sowed,  now  yield  but  seven-fold, 
and  only  one-ninth  of  all  the  land  is  productive."  This 
is  the  story  of  the  ravaging  of  Enna,  once  the  true  gar- 
den of  Paradise,  and  now  a  rocky  waste  burned  to  the 
bone. 


Always  from  the  very  earliest  records  the  goddess  of 
the  harvest  was  worshipped  in  this  place.  Long  be- 
fore the  coming  of  the  Greeks  the  Siculians  had  here  a 
shrine  to  Gaia,  the  earth-mother,  from  whose  brown 
breast  man  sucked  his  life  and  food.  And  the  Siculians 
had  traditions  of  the  Sikels  making  pilgrimages  to 


THE  RETURN  OF  PERSEPHONE      187 

Enna  to  give  thanks  to  a  goddess  representing  some 
principle  of  fertility,  by  whose  power  the  earth  was 
made  blessed  to  its  children.  Very  vague  and  shad- 
owy are  the  traditions  of  the  worship  of  this  Bread- 
giver.  There  are  hints  of  a  great  cave  with  a  rude 
dark  figure  within,  this  idol  having,  curiously,  a  head 
roughly  resembling  the  head  of  a  horse,  where  the  peo- 
ple timidly  kid  their  offerings  of  the  first  fruits  of  their 
primitive  culture.  This  figure  is  heard  of  later  at 
Eleusis,  to  which  the  Greeks  transpose  the  image  and 
the  worship,  but  the  myth,  so  sympathetic  to  the  Greek 
nature,  becomes  refined  and  spiritualized;  takes  on 
many  new  plays  of  thought  and  colour,  and  when  the 
great  temple  of  Demeter  is  built  here  the  story  has 
cleared  and  denned  itself,  and  is  hung  about  with  the 
garlands  of  a  thousand  gracious  imaginings. 

Our  Lady  of  Bread — daughter  herself  of  Zeus,  the 
overarching  sky — has  one  child,  Persephone,  the  spirit 
of  Spring,  that  dear  vernal  impulse  which  rejuvenates 
all  the  world  and  "puts  a  spirit  of  life  in  everything"; 
that  is  forever  sweetly  renewing  hope  of  happiness. 
Persephone's  playmates  are  the  maiden  goddesses, 
Pallas  and  Artemis,  and  also  those  light  spirits  of  the 
fields,  the  water  and  the  air — the  nymphs,  the  oreads, 
and  the  oceanides — but  she  is  not  without  duties  and 
labours  too,  for  "Proserpina,  filling  the  house  sooth- 
ingly with  her  low  song,  was  working  a  gift  against  the 
return  of  her  mother,  with  labour  all  to  be  in  vain. 
In  it  she  marked  out  with  her  needle  the  houses  of 
the  gods  and  the  series  of  the  elements,  showing  by 
what  law  nature,  the  parent  of  all,  settled  the  strife  of 
ancient  times.  .  .  .  The  lighter  elements  are  borne 
aloft;  the  air  grows  bright  with  heat;  the  sea  flows; 


188  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

the  earth  hangs  in  its  place.  And  there  were  divers 
colours  in  it;  she  illuminated  the  stars  with  gold,  in- 
fused a  purple  shade  into  the  water,  and  heightened 
the  shore  with  gems  of  flowers;  and  under  her  skilful 
hand  the  threads  with  their  inwrought  lustre  swell  up 
in  counterfeit  of  the  waves;  you  might  think  the  sea 
wind  caused  them  to  creep  over  the  rocks  and  sands. 
She  put  in  the  fire  zones,  marking  with  a  red  ground 
the  midmost  zone  possessed  by  burning  heat;  on  either 
side  lay  the  two  zones  proper  for  human  life,  and  at 
the  extremes  she  drew  the  twin  zones  of  numbing  cold, 
making  her  work  dun  and  sad  with  the  lines  of  per- 
petual frost.  She  works  in,  too,  the  sacred  places  of 
Dis  and  the  Manes  so  fatal  to  her.  And  an  omen  of 
her  doom  was  not  wanting,  for  as  she  worked,  as  if 
with  foreknowledge  of  the  future,  her  face  became  wet 
with  a  sudden  burst  of  tears.  And  now  in  the  utmost 
border  of  the  tissue  she  had  begun  to  wind  in  the  wavy 
line  of  the  Ocean  that  goes  round  about  all,  but  the 
door  sounds  on  its  hinges,  and  she  perceives  the  god- 
desses coming;  the  unfinished  work  drops  from  her 
hands  and  a  ruddy  blush  lights  her  clear  and  snow- 
white  face."  .  .  . 

Leaving  her  needle  in  the  many-coloured  web,  she 
wanders  down  the  mountain  side  to  Lake  Pergusa,  then 
lying  like  a  blue  jewel  in  enamelled  meads,  but  ever  since 
that  tragic  day  dark  and  sulphurous,  as  with  fumes  of 
hell. 

This  is  the  story,  of  the  ravishment,  as  told  in  the 
great  Homeric  Hymn  that  was  sung  in  honour  of  the 
Mother  of  Corn. 

"I  begin  the  song  of  Demeter.  The  song  of  Deme- 
ter  and  her  daughter  Persephone,  whom  Aidoneus 


THE  RETURN  OF  PERSEPHONE       189 

carried  away  as  she  played  apart  from  her  mother  with 
the  deep-bosomed  daughters  of  the  Ocean,  gathering 
flowers  in  a  meadow  of  soft  grass — roses  and  the  crocus 
and  the  fair  violets  and  flags  and  hyacinths,  and  above 
all  the  strange  flower  of  the  narcissus,  which  the  Earth, 
favouring  the  desire  of  Aidoneus,  brought  forth  for  the 
first  time  to  snare  the  footsteps  of  the  flower-like  girl. 
A  hundred  heads  of  blossom  grew  up  from  the  roots 
of  it,  and  the  sky  and  the  earth  and  the  salt  wave  of 
the  sea  were  glad  at  the  scent  thereof.  She  stretched 
forth  her  hands  to  take  the  flower;  thereupon  the  earth 
opened  and  the  King  of  the  great  nation  of  the  Dead 
sprang  out  with  his  immortal  horses.  He  seized  the 
unwilling  girl,  and  bore  her  away  weeping  on  his 
golden  chariot.  She  uttered  a  shrill  cry,  calling  upon 
Zeus;  but  neither  man  nor  god  heard  her  voice,  nor 
even  the  nymphs  of  the  meadow  where  she  played; 
except  Hecate  only,  sitting  as  ever  in  her  cave,  half 
veiled  with  a  shining  veil,  and  thinking  delicate  thoughts, 
she,  and  the  Sun  also,  heard  her. 

"  So  long  as  Persephone  could  still  see  the  earth  and 
the  sky  and  the  sea  with  the  great  waves  moving,  and 
the  beams  of  the  sun,  and  still  thought  to  see  again  her 
mother,  and  the  race  of  the  ever-living  gods,  so  long 
hope  soothed  her  in  the  midst  of  her  grief.  The  peaks 
of  the  hills  and  the  depths  of  the  sea  echoed  her  cry. 
And  the  Mother  heard  it.  A  sharp  pain  seized  her  at 
the  heart;  she  plucked  the  veil  from  her  hair,  and  cast 
down  the  blue  hood  from  her  shoulders,  and  fled  forth 
like  a  bird,  seeking  her  daughter  over  dry  land 
and  sea. 

"Nine  days  she  wandered  up  and  down  upon  the 
earth,  having  blazing  torches  in  her  hands,  and  in  her 


190  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

great  sorrow  she  refused  to  taste  of  ambrosia,  or  of  the 
cup  of  the  sweet  nectar,  nor  washed  her  face.  But 
when  the  tenth  morning  came  Hecate  met  her,  having 
a  light  in  her  hands.  But  Hecate  had  heard  the  voice 
only,  and  had  seen  no  one,  and  could  not  tell  Demeter 
who  had  borne  the  girl  away.  And  Demeter  said  not 
a  word,  but  fled  away  swiftly  with  Hecate,  having  the 
blazing  torches  in  her  hands,  till  they  came  to  the  Sun, 
the  watchman  of  Gods  and  men;  and  the  goddess 
questioned  him,  and  the  Sun  told  her  the  whole 
story."  .  .  . 

What  a  picture  the  Greek  singer  makes  of  the  melan- 
choly earth  calling  for  comfort  to  the  moon!  for  Hecate 
was  not  Artemis,  but  a  vaguer,  vaster  principle  of  the 
night;  an  impersonalized  shadow  of  the  Huntress,  as 
Hertha  was  the  shadow,  formless  and  tremendous,  of 
Demeter.  Hecate  was  a  pale  luminous  force,  "half 
veiled  with  a  shining  veil,  'and  thinking  delicate 
thoughts,"  and  ten  days  later,  having  rounded  to  the 
full,  the  bereaved  mother  meets  her  "bearing  a  light 
in  her  hands,"  though  the  night  is  nearing  morning, 
and  moon  and  earth  turn  together  toward  the  coming 
sun. 

The  Homeric  Hymn  tells  much  of  the  wandering 
and  grieving  mother;  of  her  disguises;  of  her  nursing 
of  the  sick  child  Demophoon,  whose  own  mother 
snatched  him  back  from  the  immortality  which  the 
goddess  was  ensuring  by  passing  him  through  the  fire 
— as  many  a  loving  and  timid  mother  since  has  held 
her  son  back  from  the  fires  that  confer  immortality. 
The  Hymn  tells  of  her  teaching  of  Triptolemus  of  the 
winged  feet,  instructing  him  in  Eleusinian  mysteries — 
"those  mysteries  which  no  tongue  may  speak.  Only 


THE  RETURN  OF  PERSEPHONE      191 

blessed  is  he  whose  eyes  have  seen  them;  his  lot  after 
death  is  not  as  the  lot  of  other  men!" 

But  Jane  and  Peripatetica  loved  more  the  story  of 
the  ending  of  her  vigil,  when  Hermes  descended  into 
Hell  in  his  chariot. 

"And  Persephone  ascended  into  it,  and  Hermes  took 
the  reins  in  his  hands  and  drove  out  through  the  in- 
fernal halls;  and  they  two  passed  quickly  over  the 
ways  of  that  long  journey,  neither  the  waters  of  the 
sea,  nor  of  the  rivers,  and  the  deep  ravines  of  the  hills, 
nor  the  cliffs  of  the  shore  resisting  them;  till  at  last 
Hermes  placed  Persephone  before  the  door  of  the  tem- 
ple where  her  mother  was,  who,  seeing  her,  ran  out 
quickly  to  meet  her,  like  a  Maenad  coming  down  a 
mountain  side  dusky  with  woods." 

So  these  two  saw  Persephone  come  home;  saw  the 
spring  return  to  the  earth  in  the  high  places  of  the  gods. 
Saw  the  land,  even  though  no  longer  a  paradise,  yet 
— despite  Erysicthon's  foolish  waste  of  the  sacred  trees 
— saw  it  "laden  with  leaves  and  flowers  and  the  wav- 
ing corn,"  and,  having  seen  it,  they  passed  on  through 
Sicily  satisfied. 


CHAPTER    V 
A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES 

"  'Tis  right  for  him 

To  touch  the  threshold  of  the  gods." 

THEY  were  running  swiftly  through  the  dark.  On 
either  hand  was  a  dim  and  gloomy  land  of  bare,  shriv- 
elled peaks,  grey  cinder  heaps,  and  sulphurous  smells. 
Intermittently  visible  by  the  strange  subterranean 
glowings  rose  black,  glowering  mountains  in  the  back- 
ground, and  nearer  at  hand  were  shadowy  shapes  of 
men  and  asses  bringing  sulphur  from  the  mines. 
Within,  the  garlic-reeking  tongue  of  a  flickering  gas- 
lamp  vaguely  illumined  the  dusk  of  the  railway  carriage. 

"This  is  Pluto's  own  realm,"  declared  Jane,  re- 
moving her  nose  from  the  window-pane,  through  which 
she  had  been  endeavouring  to  peer  into  the  outer  gloom. 
"  If  it's  not  the  very  threshold  of  the  infernal  regions  it 
ought  to  be.  Peripatetica,  you  might  spare  me  a 
glimmer  or  two  from  your  Baedeker.  Were  there  no 
temples  to  Pluto  here?  These  are  surely  the  very  sur- 
roundings in  which  he  should  have  been  worshipped." 

192 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  193 

"A  temple  to  Pluto?"  replied  Peripatetica  sleepily. 
"Where?  ...  I  never  heard  of  one  that  I  can  remem- 
ber; have  you?" 

Jane  suddenly  realized  that  her  recollections  held  no 
account  of  any  spot  where  that  dark  King  of  the  Under 
World  had  been  honoured  under  the  sun;  it  was  an- 
other mystery  of  the  past,  to  which  there  was  no  an- 
swer, though  Peripatetica  gave  up  her  nap  in  the  effort 
to  solve  it — why  had  Pluto,  supreme  in  the  Under  World 
as  Zeus  in  the  Upper  one,  beneath  whose  sway  all  men 
born  must  come,  remained  so  unhonoured  among  liv- 
ing men? 

The  Greeks  did  believe  in  a  future  life;  the  spirit 
expiating  or  rewarded  for  deeds  done  in  the  flesh. 
Those  were  facts  which  men  thought  they  knew,  which 
were  an  integral  axis  of  their  faith — how  so  believing, 
did  they  treat  it  thus  unconcernedly,  seeing  things  in 
such  different  proportions  from  ourselves?  So  much 
concern  for  the  fulness  of  life  in  the  present,  so  little  for 
the  shadowy  hereafter — shrines  and  temples  and  sac- 
rifices on  every  hill-side  to  the  Deities  of  Life,  of  Birth, 
and  Fertility;  nothing  for  the  God  of  Death. 

Death  and  Life — they  touched  as  closely  in  ancient 
days  as  now,  perhaps  more  closely.  The  Greeks  did 
not  push  away  their  dead  to  a  dim,  silent  oblivion. 
Near  to  the  warm  heart  of  life  they  were  held  in  bright, 
oft-invoked  memory.  In  the  busiest  centres  of  life 
were  placed  the  tombs  of  their  dead;  close  to  the 
theatre — to  the  Forum — wherever  the  living  most 
thronged  the  Road  of  Tombs  was;  one  where  all  the 
busiest  tide  of  life  flowed.  Invocations  and  offerings 
and  sweet  ceremonies  of  remembrance  were  given  to 
their  dead  more  often  than  tears.  And  constantly  the 
13 


194  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

living  turned  to  the  dear  and  honoured  dead — "much 
frequented"  was  the  Greek  adjective  which  went 
oftenest  with  the  tomb.  But  the  grim  God  of  Death 
was  apparently  not  for  living  man  to  make  his  spirit 
"sick  and  sorry"  by  worshipping.  It  was  Life — glori- 
ous, glowing  fulness  of  life  to  the  uttermost — that  was 
important  to  the  Greek;  Life  that  governed  Death  and 
made  it  either  honoured  and  reposeful,  or  a  state  of 
shadowy  wanderings  and  endless  regret. 

To  the  modern  mind,  still  tinged  with  mediaeval  mor- 
bidity, groping  back  into  the  clear  serenity  of  those 
golden  days,  it  seemed  to  be  life,  life,  only  life  that 
preoccupied  the  Greeks,  and  yet,  they  too  had  hearts 
to  feel  Death's  sting  even  as  we — to  be  aware  of  the 
underlying  sadness  of  all  the  joy  upon  this  rolling 
world.  They  too  could  deeply  feel  the  inexorable 
mingling  of  delight  and  pain,  of  life  and  loss.  .  .  . 

Their  great  Earth  Mother,  blond  and  sunny  as  her 
golden  grain,  the  deity  of  all  fruitfulness  and  benefi- 
cent increase,  is  also  Ceres  Deserta — the  Mater  Dolo- 
rosa — shrouded  in  the  dark  blue  robe  of  all  earth's 
shadows,  haggard  with  tears  of  wasting  desolation — 
"the  type  of  divine  sorrow,"  as  well  as  of  joyous  frui- 
tion .  .  .  her  emblem  the  blood-red  poppy,  symbol  in 
its  drowsy  juices,  of  sleep  and  death,  as  in  its  multi- 
tudinous seeds  the  symbol  of  life  and  resurrection. 

And  her  daughter,  like  herself  the  most  specially  and 
intimately  beloved  by  the  Greeks  among  all  their  dei- 
ties, had  even  more  the  dual  quality — Goddess  of 
Spring,  of  resurrection,  and  rejuvenescence,  and  yet 
too,  Queen  of  the  dark  Under  World.  She  was  the 
impulse  of  all  spring's  teeming  life,  and  yet  herself 
"compact  of  sleep  and  death  and  narcotic  flowers  bear- 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  195 

ing  always  in  the  swallowed  pomegranate  seeds  the 
secret  of  ultimate  decay,  of  return  to  the  grave." 

Kore,  the  maiden,  the  incarnation  of  all  fresh  and 
sweet  and  innocent  joyousness,  was  also  symbol  of  its 
evanescence — "a  helpless  plucked  flower  in  the  arms  of 
Aidoneus,"  so  that  upon  the  sarcophagi  of  women  who 
had  died  in  early  youth  the  Greeks  were  wont  to  carve 
Pluto's  stealing  of  Persephone,  picturing  the  Divine 
Maiden  with  the  likeness  of  the  dear  dead  one's  face. 


Dark,  blurred  shapes  in  Greek-like  drapery  of  many- 
folded  cape  and  shawl,  appeared  now  and  then  in 
shifting  crowds  upon  station  platforms,  like  the  uneasy 
shades  of  Pluto's  kingdom  seeking  escape. 

To  Peripatetica  and  Jane  it  began  to  seem  as  if  their 
quest  for  the  Lost  Spring  had  taken  them  into  the  Under 
World  of  her  imprisonment  to  behold  with  thrills  of 
half  pity,  half  awe,  in  "that  dim  land  where  all  things 
are  forgotten"  her  transformation  into  the  mate  of 
gloomy  Dis,  no  longer  bright,  golden-haired  girl-flower, 
but  veiled  Proserpina  Despana,  the  Queen  of  the  Dead, 
where  now: 

"Pale,  beyond  porch  and  portal, 

Crowned  with  calm  leaves,  she  stands, 
Who  gathers  all  things  mortal 
With  cold  immortal  hands; 

She  waits  for  each  and  other, 

She  waits  for  all  men  born, 
Forgets  the  Earth,  her  mother, 

The  life  of  fruits  and  corn." 


Escaping  at  kst  from  the  sulphur  fumes,  the  strange 


196  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

glares  and  the  Hades  visions,  they  found  themselves 
standing  under  a  clear  star-strewn  sky  with  a  gentle 
air  blowing  in  their  faces.  In  an  open  carriage  they 
were  whirled  off,  they  knew  not  where,  into  the  night, 
stars  bright  overhead  and  lights  like  fallen  stars  on  a 
high  hill  to  the  right,  the  soft  wind  of  the  darkness 
breathing  of  spring  and  green  growing  things. 

Suddenly  there  was  the  welcoming  door  of  the  Hotel 
des  Temples,  and  then  little  white  bedrooms  and  quick 
oblivion. 


There  is  a  pounding  on  Jane's  door. 

"Hurry,  you  sluggard!"  says  Peripatetica's  voice. 
"Come  out  and  see  what  a  delicious  place  this  is!" 
and  she  enters  radiant.  "There's  no  mistake  about 
spring  this  time;  everything  is  riotous  with  it — and  it's 
real  country.  Not  mere  theatrical  scenery  like  Taor- 
mina,  nor  mere  bones  and  stones  like  Syracuse,  but 
real  dear  Arcadian  country,  with  trees,  actually  trees! 
and  there  are  great  golden  temples  rising  out  of  the 
trees,  with  the  sea  and  the  hills  behind,  and  nothing 
but  sweet  peaceful  meadows  and  orchards  all  around 
us — I  want  to  stay  here  forever." 

When  Jane  too  stood  upon  the  hotel  terrace  drink- 
ing in  all  the  fairness  of  the  outlook  which  Peripatetica 
silently  but  proudly  displayed,  in  the  proprietorship  of 
earlier  rising,  she  was  quite  ready  to  echo  the  wish. 
Billowy  orchards  of  almonds  in  tenderest  leafage,  hoary 
groves  of  olives,  the  silver  and  white  of  wind-stirred 
bean-fields  in  blossom,  vivid  emerald  of  young  wheat, 
crimson  meadows  of  lupine  rolling  down  to  a  peacock 
sea  glittering  to  a  wide  horizon. 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  197 

Soft  mountains,  not  too  high;  old  stone  pines  black 
against  the  azure  sky;  brown  walls  of  convents,  and 
bell  towers  emerging  from  the  dark  green  of  oranges 
and  pines;  and  rising  out  of  all  this  Arcadian  sweet- 
ness of  meadow  and  grove  the  tawny  columns  of  the 
Temples. 

"Oh,  let's  get  to  them  at  once!"  cried  Jane,  and 
guideless  and  impatient  they  went,  as  the  bird  flies, 
straight  across  the  intervening  country,  towards  those 
beckoning  golden  pillars.  Plunging  down  the  hillside 
in  front,  garden-orchard,  ploughed  field,  dusty  high- 
road— all  were  merely  a  road  between  them  and  those 
temples  of  Lost  Gods  still  rising  unsubmerged  above 
the  tree  tops.  Little  boys  digging  in  the  fields  shyly 
offered  them  fossil  shells  and  the  bits  of  pottery  their 
shovels  had  turned  up,  old  women  at  garden  gates 
called  invitations  to  come  in  and  pick  oranges  or  in- 
spect the  ruins  of  "Casa  Greco's,"  but  they  held  straight 
on  through  olive  groves  seemingly  old  as  the  temples 
themselves,  through  velvety  young  wheat  and  flowery 
meadows.  The  distance  was  greater  than  had  ap- 
peared from  above.  Sometimes  the  gleam  of  columns 
through  the  green  beckoned  illusively  to  impossible 
short  cuts,  as  when  a  tempting  grass  path  seemed  to 
run  straight  to  the  feet  of  the  nearest  temple  and  in- 
stead led  into  a  farm-yard  inhabited  by  fiercely  bark- 
ing dogs.  A  noise  that  called  out  the  farm  people  to 
explain  as  politely  as  if  these  were  the  first  strangers 
who  had  ever  made  the  intrusive  mistake,  that  an  im- 
passable wall  made  it  impossible  to  reach  the  Temples 
through  their  property,  and  to  detail  a  wee,  starry- 
eyed  bronze  faun  in  tattered  blue  rags  to  put  them 
upon  the  correct  but  roundabout  road. 


198  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

In  the  glowing  sun  of  the  spring  morning — the  old 
world  renewing  itself  in  blooming  freshness  all  about 
— songs  of  birds  and  petals  of  fruit-blossoms  in  the  air, 
against  the  shimmering  blue  of  sky  and  sea  and  the 
new  green  of  the  earth's  breast,  was  upreared  the 
saffron  mass  of  Concordia — shrine  of  a  Peace  twenty 
centuries  old. 

It  looked  its  name,  did  Concord,  standing  with  all  its 
amber  columns  worn  but  perfect,  in  unbroken  accord, 
still  upholding  architrave  and  tympanum. 

Intact  in  all  but  roof,  on  its  platform  of  steep,  worn 
steps  it  stands — in  the  midst  of  fields  and  groves  that 
were  once  a  clanging  stone  city,  close  beside  the  dusty 
highroad  along  which  come  the  landau  loads  of  hur- 
ried tourists — with  its  calm  still  unbroken.  It  em- 
bodies the  permanence  of  peace  through  all  the  evanes- 
cent life  of  the  flowing  years.  Unaltered  through  all 
the  changes  of  time,  its  Doric  columns  rise,  tranquil 
and  fair,  and  hospitably  it  offers  welcome  to  all  who 
come. 

As  of  old  one  may  climb  its  steps  to  worship  and 
admire.  The  road  winds  to  its  very  base,  and  it  stands 
as  free  to  all  comers  as  to  the  sun  and  wind.  It  alone 
of  all  the  glories  of  once  magnificent  Akragas  remains 
in  its  original  shape.  Other  shrines  were  greater, 
larger,  more  splendid  in  their  day.  The  high  house  of 
Zeus,  with  its  mammoth  columns,  was  nearly  three 
times  the  height  of  Concord;  it  had  an  enclosure  of 
three  hundred  and  seventy-two  feet  to  Concord's  one 
hundred  and  thirty-eight,  and  must  once  have  looked 
scornfully  on  its  little  neighbour.  Hercules,  with  his 
marvels  of  sculpture  and  painting;  Juno,  with  her 
statue-enriched  "thymele"  terrace  extending  her  pre- 


a 
EB 
H 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  199 

cincts  around  its  out-door  altar  and  her  renowned  pic- 
ture by  Zeuxis,  for  whose  composite  beauty  the  five 
loveliest  girls  of  the  city  had  been  models,  probably 
outranked  simple  Concord.  No  record  of  its  holding 
venerated  treasures  of  beauty  has  come  down  from  the 
days  of  its  prime.  Yet  it  alone  has  survived  whole; 
emerging  intact  from  the  storms  of  war  and  nature,  as 
if  its  own  distilled  atmosphere  of  serenity  has  acted  as 
a  preservative  against  Time.  Even  the  Middle  Ages 
treated  it  gently.  St.  Gregory  of  the  Turnips  took  it 
for  a  shrine,  and  a  gentle,  serene  saint  he  must  have 
been;  one  able  to  dwell  in  the  abode  of  Peace  without 
feeling  any  desire  to  alter  and  rebuild,  glad  to  look  out 
of  its  open  peristyle  and  watch  his  turnips  in  the  sunny 
fields,  wisely  refraining  from  choking  the  pillars  into 
walls  and  plaster  like  poor  Minerva's  at  Syracuse. 
Concordia's  cella  seemed  to  have  been  just  a  cosy  fit 
for  St.  Gregory  and  he  a  careful  tenant,  leaving  only 
the  two  arched  openings  in  its  walls  to  mark  his  occu- 
pancy. And  so  the  Temple  is  to-day  the  best  pre- 
served in  existence — shorn  of  all  its  statues,  stucco,  and 
decoration,  a  little  blurred  and  worn  in  outline,  as  if 
Time's  maw,  while  refraining  from  crushing,  has  yet 
mumbled  it  over  gently. 

It  was  apparently  this  completeness  of  preservation 
which  had  so  enamoured  Goethe  that  he  dared  to 
speak  lightly  of  the  stern  majesty  of  the  temple  of 
Paestum  by  comparison.  Poseidon's  great  fane  he 
thought  as  inferior  to  Concord's  as  a  hero  is  inferior  to 
a  god. 

"A  god  to  a  hero,"  quoted  Jane  with  a  resentful 
sniff.  "It  was  just  like  that  pompous,  stodgy  old  Ger- 
man to  be  carried  away  by  mere  preservation,  and  to 


200  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

prefer  this  sugary-slightly-melted-vanilla-caramel  tem- 
ple to  that  solemn  splendour  of  Paestum." 

"What  an  abominable  simile  you've  used  for  this 
lovely  thing,"  scolded  Peripatetica.  "You're  even 
worse  than  Goethe — if  possible." 

"It  isn't  an  abominable  simile,"  protested  Jane  flip- 
pantly. "It  is  exactly  the  colour  of  a  good  vanilla 
caramel,  and  moreover  it  looks  like  one  licked  all  over 
by  some  giant  tongue." 

Having  said  an  outrageous  thing  she  pretended  to 
defend  it  and  believe  it,  but  her  heart  smote  her  for 
irreverence  as  she  and  Peripatetica  strolled  about  the 
peristyle,  gazing  through  the  columns  at  the  pictures 
their  tawny  flutings  framed,  and  she  grudgingly  ad- 
mitted that  the  situation  at  least  was  divine. 

Perched  on  the  crest  of  a  sheer-dropping  rocky  cliff, 
Concordia  faces  the  west.  To  the  south  dark  blue 
sea,  and  to  the  north  billowy  woods  and  fields  in  all  the 
gamut  of  spring  greens  surge  up  to  the  apricot-tinted 
town,  which  is  the  last  shrunken  remnant  of  old  Akra- 
gas.  Beneath  the  cliff  green  meadows  stretch  smooth 
to  the  African  Sea.  Eastwards,  on  a  neighbouring 
knoll,  Juno  lifts  her  exquisite  columns  against  the  blue, 
and  softly  moulded  hills  melt  into  the  distant  rugged- 
ness  of  Castrogiovanni's  mountains.  To  the  north  lie 
fields  and  groves  and  orchards,  with  dottings  of  farm- 
house and  church,  up  to  the  top  of  the  Rupe  Athena, 
where,  with  her  usual  passion  for  conspicuousness,  high 
Athena  had  once  kept  watch  in  her  Temple,  that  now, 
according  to  the  so  frequent  fate  of  the  mighty,  is 
fallen  into  nothingness. 

How  worshipful  his  blithe  gods  of  Sun  and  Abun- 
dance must  have  here  appeared  to  the  Greek;  how 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  201 

good  the  world  spread  out  for  him  in  all  its  fairness; 
the  citadel-crowned  hill  protecting  his  rich  city,  the 
shining  sea  carrying  his  commerce;  the  mountains  of 
the  bounteous  Earth  Mother's  home  encircling  the 
rolling  groves  and  meadowland  she  blessed  so  fruit- 
fully, and  the  triumphs  of  his  own  handiwork  in  the 
marvellous  temples  and  buildings  of  this  splendid 
Akragas,  "fairest  of  mortal  cities,"  as  even  the  poets 
of  Greece  admitted. 

The  Plutonian  shore  of  the  previous  night  seemed 
very  far  away,  now  that  Persephone  was  back  in  her 
own  "belonging"  country  again;  the  dark  terrors  of 
Hades  had  grown  dim.  Naturally  the  gods  of  Light 
and  Day  were  the  only  ones  worshipped;  they  were 
supreme  for  life — and  after — ah  well!  "the  dark  Fate 
which  lay  behind  gods  and  men  could  not  be  propiti- 
ated by  any  rites,  and  must  be  encountered  manfully 
as  one  meets  the  inevitable."  .  .  . 

"Of  course  there  were  no  temples  to  Pluto,  they 
wouldn't  have  known  how  to  build  one,"  said  Peri- 
patetica,  looking  from  the  enclosed  cella  to  the  sunlit 
peristyle  outside.  "I  never  quite  realized  before  the 
cheerful,  self-possessed  publicity  of  Greek  worship; 
their  temples  standing  always  in  these  open  elevated 
sites;  open  themselves  to  the  light  and  air — majestic- 
ally simple.  There  is  just  the  little  enclosure  to  shel- 
ter the  statue  of  the  god,  and  all  the  rest  is  clear  open- 
ness, where  the  worshippers  stood  under  glowing  sun 
and  sky,  or  looking  out  into  it.  It's  essentially  an 
out-of-door  building,  the  Greek  Temple,  spreading  its 
beauty  to  light  and  air  like  a  flower.  Pluto  would  have 
had  to  evolve  a  type  of  his  own,  he  never  could  have 
fitted  into  this  calm  cheerfulness." 


202  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

"No,"  pondered  Jane,  "there  is  no  room  for  su- 
perstitious terrors  in  the  sunshine.  I  wonder  does 
superstition  turn  naturally  to  caves  and  gloom,  or  do 
dark  holes  in  the  ground  breed  it?  There  is  all  the 
space  of  light  and  darkness  between  the  sermon  preached 
on  the  Mount,  all  beatitudes  and  tenderness,  and  the 
theology  of  the  monks  in  the  Middle  Ages  after  the 
Christians  had  made  their  churches  in  such  catacombs 
as  those  of  Syracuse."  .  .  . 

All  Girgenti's  temples  are  wrought  from  this  native 
chrome-yellow  tufa;  a  sort  of  solidified  sea-beach — 
compacted  sand,  pebbles,  and  fossil  shells.  The  orig- 
inal snow-white  stucco,  made  of  marble  dust,  has  flaked 
away,  save  here  and  there  in  some  protected  niche. 
The  dry  sirocco  gnaws  into  the  soft  sandstone,  and 
on  the  seaside  of  the  columns  show  the  long  deep  scor- 
ings of  its  viewless  teeth,  sunk  in  places  nearly  half 
through  the  huge  diameter  of  the  pillars. 

Peripatetica  was  in  two  minds  as  to  whether  the 
temples  had  not  been  even  more  lovely  in  their  original 
virgin  whiteness.  "After  all,"  she  mourned,  "they 
are  but  a  frame  without  the  pictures;  for  the  Greek 
temple  existed  primarily  to  be  a  setting  for  its  sculp- 
ture. Sculpture  was  an  essential  part  of  its  planning, 
not  a  mere  decoration,  and  without  it  pediment,  met- 
opes, frieze,  and  pedestals  are  meaningless  forms. 
That  sculpture  that  stood  and  walked  on  the  pedi- 
ments and  gave  life  to  the  frieze;  that  animated  the 
exterior,  or  sat  calm  and  strong  in  the  central  shrine. 
To  a  Greek  even  this  wonderfully  preserved  Concor- 
dia,  bare  of  sculpture,  would  seem  but  a  melancholy 
skeleton  of  a  once  fair  shrine." 

But  Jane  was  obstinately  sure  that  nothing  could 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  203 

be  better  than  the  natural  harmonies  of  the  naked 
stone. 

"Nothing,"  she  insisted  with  bland  firmness,  "not 
even  your  blind  conviction  that  everything  the  Greeks 
did  was  exactly  right — just  because  they  did  it — will 
persuade  me  that  they  improved  these  temples  by  any 
marble  plaster.  Come  over  here  and  look  at  the  warm 
red  gold  of  those  soaring  fluted  stems  against  the  vivid 
blue!  It  is  as  if  the  splendour  of  sunset  glowed  upon 
them  all  day  long.  As  if  they  had  soaked  in  so  much 
sun  through  all  the  bright  centuries  that  now  even  the 
very  stones  gave  it  out  again." 

Peripatetica  had  been  half  inclined  to  believe  this 
herself  at  first,  but  of  course  Jane's  opposition  clinched 
her  wavering  suffrages  for  the  stucco. 

"You  lack  in  imagination,"  she  announced  loftily. 
"You  see  only  what  you  see.  Try  to  realize  what  the 
marble  background  meant  to  the  saffron-robed,  flower- 
garlanded  priests,  and  to  the  worshippers  massed  on 
the  steps  and  in  the  peristyles  in  delicate-tinted  chiton 
and  chamyle — crocus,  daffodil,  violet-rose,  ivory — like 
a  living  flower  wreath  from  out  the  spring  meadows 
encircling  the  white  temple's  base — 

"Oh,  do  stop  trying  to  be  Pater-esque!"  scoffed 
Jane,  "and  let's  go  to  luncheon.  That  sounds  too 
much  like  sublimated  guide-book,  and  the  hotel  looks 
miles  away  to  my  unimaginative  eye." 


"We  won't,  will  we?"   said  Jane  hah*  an  hour  later, 
with  her  irreverent  mouth  full. 
Peripatetica  knew  what  she  meant. 
"Go  on  to-morrow?    No,  indeed.    We'll  telegraph 


204  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

Cook  to  send  our  mail  here  until  further  notice — the 
idea  of  being  told  there  was  nothing  to  linger  for  at 
Girgenti!  It's  the  nicest  place  we've  yet  found  in 
Sicily." 

The  room  was  full  of  the  munching  of  tourists. 
From  the  talk  in  German,  English,  and  French,  could 
be  gathered  they  had  one  and  all  "  done  "  the  five  tem- 
ples, the  tombs,  and  San  Niccola  that  morning — would 
"take  in"  the  town  sights  that  afternoon  and  pass  on 
that  evening  or  the  next  morning.  The  two  Seekers, 
to  whom  the  morning  had  not  been  long  enough  in 
which  to  dream  and  dispute  over  one  temple,  felt  their 
heads  growing  dizzy  at  the  rush  with  which  the  tourist 
stream  flowed  along  its  Cook-dug  channels,  and  they 
gladly  resolved  to  leave  the  current  and  climb  up  high 
and  dry  on  the  bank  of  this  inviting  little  backwater. 

The  announcement  of  their  intention  to  stay  on 
seemed  to  give  the  polite  young  proprietor  of  the  hotel 
a  strange  shock.  He  offered  better  rooms  looking  on 
the  terrace,  and  pension  rates  if  they  stayed  more  than 
three  days,  instead  of  the  usual  week  for  which  that 
reduction  is  commonly  made.  A  flutter  of  excitement 
at  their  behaviour  passed  at  once  through  all  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  hotel. 

First  came  the  concierge.  "You  are  really  not  leaving 
to-morrow  morning,  ladies?  For  what  day  do  you 
wish  me  to  get  your  tickets  stamped?"  He  was  star- 
tledly  incredulous  when  told  that  the  day  was  still  too 
far  in  the  future  for  a  date  to  be  fixed.  The  porter 
came  to  ask  at  what  time  he  was  to  carry  out  their 
luggage  in  the  morning — the  head  waiter  to  know  for 
which  train  they  wished  to  be  called.  The  stolid 
chambermaid's  mouth  fell  open  in  surprise  when  asked 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  205 

to  move  their  things  to  other  rooms.  The  two-foot- 
high  Buttons  shifted  about  chairs  four  times  his  own 
size  in  the  lobby  to  get  a  chance  to  gaze  satisfactorily 
at  such  peculiar  ladies,  and  by  tea-time  the  German 
waiters  were  staring  as  they  carried  about  tea-trays, 
and  pointing  out  to  one  another  the  strangely  behaving 
two  who  were  not  leaving  the  next  day! 

The  pretty  little  hotel  was  like  a  railway  restaurant. 
Successive  sets  of  hurried  tourists  appeared,  made  a 
one-meal  or  a  one-night  stop,  and  rushed  on,  leaving 
their  places  to  others.  In  a  week's  time  so  many  sets 
had  come  and  gone  that  Peripatetica  and  Jane  began 
to  take  on  the  air  of  pre-historic  aborigines;  as  if  they 
had  been  sitting  on  their  sunny  bank  watching  all  the 
invading  hordes  of  nations  since  the  Carthagenians 
made  their  first  raid. 

By  way  of  emphasizing  the  superior  intelligence  of 
their  own  methods  they  savoured  slowly  and  linger- 
ingly  Girgenti's  endless  charms.  Loafing  placidly  on 
the  flowery  terrace  for  an  hour  after  breakfast  to  enjoy 
the  distant  view  of  the  golden  temples,  or  to  watch  the 
patient  labours  of  ancient  brown  Orlando  and  his 
ancient  grey  ass  Carlo,  who  spent  all  their  waking 
hours  in  climbing  down,  down  the  precipitous  road  to 
the  Fonte  del  Greci  with  empty  water-barrels,  and 
toilsomely  bringing  them  up  full  and  dripping  to  be 
emptied  into  the  terrace  well  with  its  lovely  carved 
well  head.  Or  they  retired  to  the  niche  below  the 
terrace  stairs  under  the  feathery  pepper  tree,  and  sat 
amid  a  blaze  of  poppies  and  mauve  to  write  letters, 
punctuated  by  frequent  pauses  to  look  across  the  olive 
orchards  and  young  wheat  fields  to  the  wide  blue  fields 
of  the  sea.  And  every  day  they  strolled  away  through 


206  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

the  orchard  footpaths  towards  the  temples,  which  were 
ever  their  goal,  though  they  might  be  hours  in  reaching 
that  goal  because  of  being  led  away  by  adventures  on 
the  road. 

It  was  by  way  of  this  footpath  that  they  first  fell 
into  the  hands  of  Fortunate.  They  were  forever  fall- 
ing into  some  one's  hands  and  finding  the  results  agree- 
able, for  they  kept  their  minds  open  to  suggestion  and 
abjured  all  hard  and  fast  lines  of  intention,  being  wise 
enough  to  realize  that  what  is  known  as  "a  good  trav- 
eller" usually  misses  all  the  good  of  travel  by  the  cut- 
and-driedness  of  his  aims. 

Fortunate  was  sure  that  he  could  "spika  da  Eng- 
lishy,"  though  what  led  him  to  suppose  so,  other  than 
a  large  command  of  illuminative  gesture,  never  became 
clear.  Some  half-dozen  words — adorned  with  super- 
fluous vowels  to  a  point  of  unrecognizability — he  did 
possess;  the  rest  was  Sicilian,  sympathy,  and  vivid  in- 
telligence, which  sufficed  to  make  him  the  perfectly 
delightful  guide  he  explained  himself  to  be.  His  age 
he  declared  to  be  fourteen,  he  looked  all  of  ten,  but 
his  knowledge  of  the  world,  of  life,  of  history,  and  of 
the  graces  of  conversation  could  hardly  have  been 
acquired  by  any  one  less  than  forty.  Within  twenty 
minutes  he  had  made  them  free  of  such  short  and  sim- 
ple annals  of  his  career  as  he  judged  to  be  suited  to 
their  limited  forestieri  minds,  having  first  firmly  as- 
sumed the  burden  of  all  their  small  impedimenta — 
jackets,  kodaks,  and  parasols.  He  was  one  of  fifteen, 
he  explained,  and  also  the  main  staff  of  his  parents' 
declining  years;  the  six  staffs  younger  than  himself 
being  somewhat  too  short  for  that  filial  office.  The 
other  eight  had  been  removed  from  this  service  by  the 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  207 

combined  ravages  of  marriage,  the  army,  and  emigra- 
tion. When  time  and  the  growth  of  his  juniors  en- 
abled him  to  lay  down  his  absorbing  duties  he  had  the 
intention  of  joining  in  Nuova  Yorka  a  distinguished 
barber,  who  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  being  his  elder 
brother.  Nuova  Yorka,  he  had  been  given  to  under- 
stand by  this  brother,  boasted  no  such  mountains  as 
these  of  Girgenti,  but  its  streets  were  filled  for  months 
with  hills  of  ice  and  snow,  and  this  information  Peri- 
patetica  and  Jane  were  regretfully  obliged  to  confirm. 

No  matter!  even  such  rigours  could  not  check  his 
ambition  to  "barb,"  and  as  his  brother  had  explained 
how  necessary  it  was  that  he  should  be  complete  mas- 
ter of  Englishy  before  landing  in  Nuova  Yorka  if  he 
hoped  to  escape  being  "plucked"  (great  business  of 
illuminating  gestures  of  rapacity)  he  employed  in  guid- 
ing Americans  such  brief  hours  as  he  could  snatch  from 
school. 

They  discovered  later  that  Fortunate  snatched  from 
school  just  seven  entire  days  every  week. 

It  had  been  the  intention  of  the  two  to  spend  the 
morning  among  the  gigantic  ruins  of  the  temple  of 
Zeus,  and  yet  when  Fortunate  put  pressure  upon  their 
ever  flexible  impulses  at  the  gate  of  the  strange  old 
Panitteri  garden,  they  found  themselves  instead  under 
the  walls  of  the  church  of  San  Niccola,  where  the  gilly- 
flowers and  wild  mignonette  rioted  from  every  crevice. 
Meekly  they  climbed  a  great  stone  terrace  adorned 
with  crumbling  statues  and  Corinthian  entablatures. 
Meekly  they  examined  the  great  baths,  and  delighted 
in  the  shining  panorama  of  sea  and  plain  and  hill,  with 
golden  Concordia  seen  in  its  most  lovely  aspect  be- 
tween two  gigantic  stone  pines. 


208  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

Still  sternly  shepherded  by  the  small  guide  they 
climbed  down  again  to  make  a  closer  acquaintance 
with  the  Oratory  of  Phalaris.  Phalaris  of  the  infamous 
legend  of  the  brazen  bull,  into  whose  heated  body  were 
cast  the  enemies  of  the  ancient  Tyrant  of  Akragas, 
because  that  humorous  gentleman's  fancy  was  highly 
diverted  by  the  similarity  of  their  moanings,  as  they 
slowly  roasted,  to  the  lowing  of  kine.  It  is  said  that 
he  fretted  a  good  deal  because  nobody  else  appeared 
to  think  the  thing  as  good  a  joke  as  it  seemed  to  him, 
but  then  taste  in  jests  will  differ,  unfortunately.  The 
Carthagenians  when  they  came  over  and  conquered 
Sicily  were  quite  delighted  with  the  ingenious  toy,  and 
carried  it  off  triumphantly  to  Africa.  They  were 
finished  artists  in  torture  themselves,  and  appreciated 
a  valuable  new  idea.  Scipio  found  the  bull  in  Car- 
thage, when  he  made  a  final  end  of  that  city,  and  he 
returned  it  to  Akragas,  but  appetite  for  really  poignant 
fun  appears  to  have  died  out  by  that  time,  and  Fortu- 
nato,  whom  they  consulted,  seemed  to  think  it  was 
probably  eventually  broken  up  for  the  purpose  of  man- 
ufacturing braziers,  or  possibly  warming-pans. 

Memory  of  the  Bull  almost  obscured  the  fact  that 
the  Oratory  was  a  beautiful  Greek  chapel,  such  as  was 
used  to  hold  some  statue  of  a  god,  and  the  memorials 
of  ancestors,  and  served  for  private  daily  devotions 
without  need  of  a  priest.  The  Normans  had  the  same 
habit  of  private  family  chapels,  so  the  Oratory  had 
served  them  in  turn,  being  pierced  by  a  Norman  win- 
dow and  the  square-headed  entrance  door  fitted  with 
an  arch. 

Half  a  dozen  races  and  centuries  had  each  had  a 
hand  in  the  Church  and  Convent  of  San  Niccola  too, 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  209 

apparently.  It  was  built  from  stones  niched  from  that 
vast  ruin  of  the  Temple  of  Zeus  they  were  on  their 
roundabout  way  to  see,  and  which  has  always  been  an 
exhaustless  quarry  for  Girgenti.  So  late  as  in  the  last 
century  the  huge  stones  that  formed  the  Porto  Em- 
pedocle,  a  long  mole  from  which  the  sulphur  is  shipped, 
were  stolen  from  poor  Zeus.  Doors,  windows,  roofs, 
arches,  had  been  added  or  changed  in  San  Niccola, 
just  as  each  generation  needed,  and  each  in  the  taste 
of  the  period.  The  holy-water  stoup  at  the  entrance, 
for  example,  was  an  enormous  marble  hand,  taken 
from  one  of  the  temples.  For  the  Greeks  too  had 
fonts  of  holy  water,  consecrated  by  plunging  into  it  a 
burning  torch  from  the  altar,  and  as  the  worshippers 
entered  they  were  asperged  with  a  branch  of  laurel. 

The  poor  Saint  was  not  in  flourishing  circumstances 
in  these  later  days,  it  would  seem,  judging  by  the  bare- 
ness of  his  sanctuary,  and  the  torn  cotton  lace  upon 
the  altars,  and  yet  he  was  an  industrious  healer,  if  one 
might  reason  from  the  votives  that  hung  about  his 
picture.  A  few  were  wrought  in  silver,  but  more  in 
wax,  or  carved  and  painted  wood,  reproducing  with 
hideous  fidelity  the  swollen  limbs,  the  cancerous  breasts, 
the  goitered  throats,  the  injured  eyes,  the  carbuncles 
and  abcesses  he  had  healed  through  his  miraculous  in- 
tervention. Indeed,  he  was  a  general  jobber  in  mira- 
cles, for  the  naive,  rude  b'ttle  paintings  on  the  wall 
showed  a  spirited  donkey  running  away  with  a  painted 
cart,  the  terrified  occupant  frantically  making  signals 
of  distress  to  San  Niccola  in  heaven,  who  was  prepar- 
ing promptly  to  check  the  raging  ass.  Or  he  was 
drawing  a  chrome-yellow  petitioner  from  a  cobalt  sea, 
or  turning  a  Mafia  dagger  aside,  or  finding  a  lost  child 

14 


210  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

in  the  mountains.  He  certainly  "studied  to  please," 
and  it  did  seem  a  pity  he  should  be  housed  in  so  bare 
and  poverty-stricken  a  shrine.  Many  less  active  saints 
lived  amid  welters  of  gilding  and  luxury. 

In  spite  of  Fortunate  dragging  them  aside  later  to 
see  a  little  "Casa  Greco,"  where  they  could  trace  deli- 
cate tesselated  pavements  and  the  bases  of  the  columns 
of  the  atrium  amid  the  grass,  they  still  succeeded  in 
arriving  that  same  afternoon  at  their  original  goal. 

Only  the  temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus  was  krger 
than  this  great  shrine  to  the  spirit  of  the  overarching 
sky,  and  even  yet,  though  moles  and  churches  and 
villas  have  been  wrought  from  its  remains,  the  gigantic 
ruin  daunts  the  imagination  with  its  colossal  fragments, 
its  huge  tumble  of  stone,  its  fallen  mountains  of  ma- 
sonry. Each  triglyph  alone  weighed  twelve  tons,  and 
the  enormous  columns  around  the  whole  length  of  its 
three  hundred  and  seventy-two  feet  were  more  than 
sixty  feet  high.  Theron,  the  benevolent  despot  of 
Akragas,  built  it  with  the  labours  of  his  Cathagenian 
captives,  and  no  doubt  a  memory  of  their  frightful 
toilings  in  the  Sicilian  noons  inspired  the  Carthagen- 
ians,  when  they  captured  the  city,  to  their  fury  of  de- 
struction against  the  fane  they  themselves  had  wrought. 
It  would  seem  as  if  only  some  convulsion  of  nature 
could  have  brought  down  that  prodigious  construction, 
but  still  visible  upon  the  bases  of  the  fallen  pillars  are 
the  cuts  made  by  the  Punic  conquerors,  sufficient  to 
disturb  the  equilibrium  of  even  these  monster  columns. 
When  their  rage  had  at  kst  expended  itself  nothing  of 
all  that  incredible  mass  of  masonry  remained  standing 
save  three  of  the  enormous  Telamone — the  male  cary- 
atids— that  had  supported  the  entablature.  And  so 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  211 

firmly  were  these  built  that  they  stood  there  for  fifteen 
centuries  more  before  time  and  a  quaking  of  the  earth 
at  last  brought  them  down. 

Now  the  last  of  these  lies  in  the  centre  of  the  ruin, 
perhaps  the  most  impressive  figure  wrought  by  man's 
hands,  so  like  does  it  seem — blurred,  vague,  tremen- 
dous— to  some  effort  to  symbolize  in  stone  the  whole 
human  race — the  very  frame  of  the  world  itself.  Shoulder 
and  breast  an  upheaved  mountain  range,  down  which 
the  mighty  muscles  pour  like  leaping  rivers  to  the  plain 
of  the  enormous  loins  and  thighs.  Rough-hewn  locks 
cluster  about  the  frowning  brows,  as  a  gnarled  forest 
grips  a  cliff's  edge,  from  beneath  which  stare  darkly 
the  caverned  eyes.  Primeval,  prehistoric  in  form,  over- 
run by  gnawing  lichens,  smeared  by  lapse  of  time  to  a 
mere  vast  adumbration  of  the  human  form. 

This  temple  had  been  the  supreme  effort  of  Akragas, 
the  richest  and  most  beautiful  city  the  Greeks  ever 
built.  The  stories  of  its  wealth,  of  its  luxury,  of  its 
gardens,  palaces,  theatres,  baths,  its  gaieties,  and  its 
pomps,  sound  like  a  description  of  Rome  under  the 
Empire,  and  would  be  incredible  if  such  ruins  as  this 
did  not  exist  to  attest  to  the  facts. 

Far  more  characteristic  of  the  Greek  were  those  twin 
temples  of  Castor  and  Pollux 

—"These  be  the  great  Twin  Brethren 
To  whom  the  Dorians  pray" — 

to  which  Fortunate  turned  their  steps  as  a  refreshing 
counteraction  of  the  stern  immensities  of  Zeus.  Light, 
delicate,  gracious  fragments  they  were,  lifting  them- 
selves airily  from  a  sea  of  flowers  on  the  edge  of  the 
ravine-like  Piscina,  once  the  reservoir  for  the  city's 


212  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

water,  but  now  full  of  lemon  orchards,  and  fringed  by 
immense  dark  carouba  trees.  .  .  . 

Another  day,  conducted  by  Fortunato  always,  they 
pilgrimed  to  the  temple  of  Hercules,  oldest  and  most 
archaic  of  them  all,  containing  still  in  the  cella  remains 
of  the  pedestal  on  which  stood  that  famous  bronze 
statue  of  the  muscular  hero  and  demigod.  The  statue 
which  that  unscrupulous  collector,  Verres,  tried  to  re- 
move and  thereby  provoked  a  riot  in  the  city.  In  this 
temple  too  had  hung  Zeuxis'  renowned  painting  of 
Hercules'  mother,  Alcmena. 

It  was  on  still  another  day  that  Fortunato  led  through 
olive  groves  and  bowery  lanes  to  the  temple  of  Juno 
Lacina,  beguiling  the  way  with  light  songs — some  of 
them  distinctly  light — and  scintillating  conversation 
upon  all  matters  in  the  heavens  above,  the  earth  be- 
neath, and  the  waters  under  the  earth.  He  mimicked 
deliciously  the  characteristics  of  English,  French,  Ger- 
man, and  American  tourists,  differentiating  their  na- 
tional peculiarities  with  delicate  acuity.  He  made  no 
effort  to  disguise  that  he  had  pondered  much  upon  the 
sexes,  and  opined,  with  a  shrug,  that  there  was  a  hope- 
less and  lifelong  irreconcilability  in  their  two  points  of 
view.  Marriage,  he  frankly  conceded  to  be  a  neces- 
sity, but  considered  it  a  lamentable  one.  Of  course 
one  must  come  to  it  soon  or  late,  but,  for  a  man,  how 
sad  a  fate!  Then  he  broke  off  to  sing  of  undying  pas- 
sion, and  interrupted  himself  to  ask  if  the  donkeys  in 
Nuova  Yorka  were  as  quick  and  strong  as  those  of 
Sicily;  he  supposed  the  streets  must  be  crowded  with 
them,  where  the  needs  of  commerce  were  so  great. 

Eventually  he  brought  them  out  upon  the  lovely 
eminence  of  the  temple  of  the  Mother  of  Heaven — 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  213 

Juno  Lacina,  special  deity  of  mothers,  which  crowns 
the  edge  of  a  sheer  cliff  of  orange-yellow  tufa  four  hun- 
dred feet  above  the  sea.  The  sea  had  washed  close 
under  the  cliff  when  the  temple  was  first  built,  but  now 
at  its  foot  the  alluvial  plains  stretch  level  and  rich,  bear- 
ing orchards  and  meadows  and  vineyards  more  fertile 
than  any  old  Akragas  knew,  though  this  very  shrine 
was  built  from  the  proceeds  of  exportation  of  oil  to 
Carthage. 

Earthquakes  had  shaken  down  more  than  hah0 
the  tall,  slim  columns.  Sirocco  has  bitten  deep  into 
those  still  standing,  and  into  the  fallen  fragments  which 
strew  the  landward  slope;  fragments  lying  among 
gnarled  olives,  seemingly  as  wind-eaten  and  ancient  as 
themselves.  Among  these  fluted  fragments  grew  wild 
pansies  and  crimson  lupins,  from  which  little  Fortunate 
gathered  nosegays,  as  he  shrilled,  in  his  boyish  falsetto, 
songs  of  love  and  sorrow — or  sat  and  kicked  his  heels 
upon  the  margin  of  an  old  bottle-shaped  cistern.  Tour- 
ists whirled  up  dustily  for  a  cursory  inspection — Baede- 
ker in  hand — and  whirled  as  quickly  away,  bent  on 
getting  through  the  sights  and  passing  on;  but  still 
Peripatetica  and  Jane  lingered  and  dreamed  among 
the  ruins  until  Fortunato  visibly  bored,  suggested  a 
short  cut  back  to  the  hotel.  It  led  them  by  fields  of 
lupin,  spread  like  crimson  velvet  mantles  on  the  hill- 
side, where  the  contadini  cut  the  glowing  crop,  heap- 
ing it  upon  asses  until  they  seemed  but  a  moving  mass 
of  blossom  trotting  home  on  brown  legs.  Goats,  Fortu- 
nato volunteered,  detested — for  some  curious  goatish 
reason  he  could  not  explain — this  picturesque  food, 
but  donkeys!  ah,  to  donkeys  it  was — in  a  burst  of  su- 
perlative explanation — "the  donkey  macaroni." 


214  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

This  short  cut  led,  too — apparently  to  Fortunato's 
surprise  and  dismay — directly  through  a  walled  farm- 
yard surrounding  a  frowning,  half-ruined  casa,  nail- 
studded  of  door  and  barred  of  window,  and  with  an  air 
of  ancient  and  secretive  menace.  It  was  the  sort  of 
place  travellers  in  such  books  as  "The  Mysteries  of 
Udolpho"  used  to  come  upon  at  nightfall,  far  from 
any  other  habitation,  with  a  thunderstorm  about  to 
break  among  the  mountains,  and  the  leader  of  their 
four-horsed  travelling  carriage  hopelessly  lame,  so  that 
the  delicate  and  shrinking  heroine  must,  willy  nilly, 
beg  for  a  night's  accommodation  and  the  surly  inhab- 
itant's sinister  hospitality.  Curiously  enough  the 
dwellers  in  this  casa  were,  it  seemed,  of  the  exact 
Udolpho  variety.  Ringing  the  correctly  rusty  bell,  and 
battering  upon  the  massive  gate  with  their  parasol 
handles  aroused  a  storm  of  deep-mouthed  baying  of 
dogs  within,  and  a  fierce  brown  face  finally  appeared 
at  a  small  wooden  shutter  to  demand  the  cause  of  the 
intrusion.  Fortunato's  heart  and  legs  pkinly  turned 
to  water  at  the  sight  of  this  person,  but  realizing  that 
he  had  got  Jane  and  Peripatetica  into  a  hole  and  must 
get  them  out,  he  wheedled  in  such  honeyed  and  per- 
suasive Sicilian,  that  at  last,  and  reluctantly,  the  heavy 
portal 

"Ground  its  teeth  to  let  them  pass," 

the  furious  dogs  having  first  been  chained.  Very  arid 
and  ruined  and  poor  this  jealously  guarded  dwelling 
seemed.  Nothing  was  visible  the  protection  of  which 
required  those  four  big  wolf-like  dogs  that  shrieked 
and  bounded  and  tore  at  their  chains  as  the  intruders 
passed;  nor  that  the  lean  fierce  man  and  his  leaner 
and  fiercer  wife  and  children  should  accompany  them 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  215 

like  a  jailer's  guard  to  the  exit.  Fortunately  this  nether 
door  was  unbarred  before  the  lean  man  demanded 
money  for  having  permitted  them  to  cross  his  land, 
and  having  a  sense  of  Fortunato's  imploring  eyes  upon 
them  they  made  the  gift  a  lire  instead  of  a  copper, 
and  pushing  through  the  door  fled  as  for  their  lives. 

"So  there  really  was  an  Italy  like  the  Italy  of  the 
romantic  Georgian  novel!"  said  Jane  wonderingly,  as 
soon  as  she  could  catch  breath. 

"It's  only  another  proof,"  gasped  Peripatetica, 
"  that  travellers  really  do  tell  the  truth.  It's  the  igno- 
rant stay-at-homes  who  can't  believe  anything  they 
haven't  seen  themselves.  Fortunate,"  she  demanded 
sternly,  "who  'are  those  people,  and  why  do  they  be- 
have so  absurdly?  What  are  they  concealing?" 

But  no  explanation  was  to  be  had  from  that  erst- 
while fluent  and  expansive  homme  du  monde.  He  was 
frightened,  he  was  vague,  and  simply  darkened  counsel. 

"I  strongly  suspect  there  is  some  Mafia  business  be- 
hind all  this — you  naughty  boy!"  said  Jane  reprov- 
ingly, but  Fortunate  only  pulled  his  cap  over  his  eyes 
and  slunk  away  without  claiming  his  day's  wage. 

Because  of  this  episode  Fortunate  found  his  offered 
services  frigidly  dispensed  with  the  next  day  when  he 
presented  himself,  Jane  and  Peripatetica  setting  out 
alone  to  explore  the  town  of  Girgenti.  They  were 
quite  sure  they  could  themselves  discover  a  short  cut 
to  the  small  city  which  would  be  much  more  amusing 
than  the  dusty  highway.  It  seemed  but  a  stone's 
throw  distant,  and  surely  by  striking  down  this  foot- 
path, and  rounding  that  rise.  .  .  . 

An  hour  later,  panting,  dripping,  and  disgusted,  they 
climbed  into  the  rear  of  the  town,  having  stumbled 


216  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

through  the  boulders  of  dry  water-courses,  struggled 
over  the  huge  old  rugged  pavements  of  ancient  Akragas 
— washed  out  of  their  concealment  by  winter  torrents 
— skirted  outlying  villas,  and  laboured  up  steps.  The 
short  cut  had  proved  the  longest  way  round  they  could 
possibly  have  taken  to  the  inadequate,  shabby  little 
museum  they  had  set  out  to  see  in  this  modern  suc- 
cessor of  the  great  Greek  city.  Girgenti,  though  one 
of  the  most  thriving  of  Sicilian  towns,  thanks  to  its 
sulphur  mines,  only  manages  to  fill  one  small  corner 
of  the  hill  acropolis  of  that  ancient  city,  which  once 
covered  all  the  miles  stretching  between  this  and  the 
temple-crowned  ridge  of  the  southern  boundary  of 
cliffs.  Akragas  found  space  for  nearly  a  million  of  in- 
habitants where  Girgenti  nourishes  but  twenty  thou- 
sand or  so. 

It  was  not  till  580  B.C.  that  this  Rhodian  colony  was 
founded,  so  Akragas  was  a  century  and  a  half  younger 
than  her  great  rival,  Syracuse — the  offspring  of  Cor- 
inth. But  that  site  on  the  steep  river-girt  hill,  rising 
from  such  fertile  country,  proved  so  favourable  to  life 
and  commerce;  trade  with  the  opposite  coast  of  Africa 
developed  so  richly,  that  Akragas'  rise  to  wealth  and 
power  was  rapid,  and  she  was  soon  pressing  Syracuse 
hard  for  the  place  of  first  city.  Her  temples  were  the 
greatest  of  all  Sicily,  almost  of  all  Greece.  The  city's 
magnificence  became  a  bye-word,  and  accounts  of  the 
wealth  and  prodigality  of  its  private  citizens  read  like 
Arabian  Nights  imaginings.  In  the  public  gymnasium 
the  people  used  golden  strigils  and  gold  vessels  for  oil. 
One  rich  Akragantine  kept  slaves  in  waiting  all  day 
at  the  door  of  his  great  mansion  to  invite  every  passing 
stranger  in  to  feast  and  repose  in  his  spacious  courts, 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  217 

where  there  were  baths  and  fresh  garments  always 
waiting  and  slaves  to  entertain  with  dance  and  music; 
flower  garlands  and  food  and  wine  unlimited  at  his 
call.  There  was  wine  in  the  cellars  by  the  reservoir 
full — three  hundred  reservoirs  of  nine  hundred  gal- 
lons each — hewn  in  the  solid  rock!  This  same  genial 
Gelleas,  when  five  hundred  riders  came  at  once  from 
Gela,  took  them  all  in,  and,  it  being  the  dead  of  win- 
ter, presented  each  man  with  new  warm  garments. 

They  delighted  in  pageants  and  splendid  public  fes- 
tivals, these  splendour-loving  Akragantines,  of  whom 
their  philosopher  Empedocles  said  that  they  "built  as 
if  they  were  to  live  forever  and  feasted  as  if  they  were 
to  die  on  the  morrow!"  We  know  they  went  out  to 
welcome  young  Exainetos,  victor  at  the  Olympian 
Games,  with  three  hundred  glittering  chariots  drawn 
all  by  milk-white  horses;  we  know  of  the  wonderful 
illuminations  that  lit  all  the  city,  from  the  monuments 
of  the  high  Acropolis  to  the  temple-crowned  sea-ram- 
part, when  a  noble  bride  passed  at  night  to  her  new 
home,  with  flutings  and  chorus,  and  an  escort  of  eight 
hundred  carriages  and  riders  innumerable. 

Now  the  town  seemed  to  be  mostly  a  winding  tangle 
of  steep  stairs — with  houses  for  walls — and  these  stairs 
were  bestrewn  with  ancient  remnants  of  vegetables  that 
had  outlived  their  usefulness,  and  a  swarming  popula^ 
tion  of  children.  Fazelli  mentions  an  Agrigentian 
woman  of  his  time  who  brought  forth  seventy-three 
children  at  thirty-three  births,  and  judging  from  the 
appearance  of  the  streets  that  rabbit-like  practice  still 
maintains.  Way  could  hardly  be  made  through  the 
swarm  of  juvenile  pests,  clamouring  for  pennies  and 
offering  themselves  as  guides,  until  a  boy  in  slightly 


218  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

cleaner  rags  was  chosen  to  show  the  way  to  the  Cathe- 
dral. Once  given  an  official  position  he  furiously  put 
his  competitors  to  flight,  and  with  goat-footed  light- 
ness flitted  before  up  the  ladder-like  alleys,  while  the 
two  panted  after  until  it  seemed  as  if  they  should  be 
able  easily  to  step  off  into  the  sky. 

A  queer  old  Fourteenth  Century  campanile,  with 
Norman  ogives  and  Moorish  balconies,  still  gives  char- 
acter to  the  exterior  of  this  thousand-foot-long  Cathe- 
dral of  San  Gerkndo  perched  aloft  in  the  windy  blue, 
but  inside  the  Eighteenth  Century  had  done  its  worst. 
Baroque  rampant;  colossal  stucco  mermaids  and  cu- 
pids,  interspersed  with  gilded  whorls  and  scrolls  as 
thick  as  shells  upon  the  "shell-work"  boxes  of  the  sea- 
side booths.  A  giant  finger  could  flick  out  a  dozen 
cupids  anywhere  without  their  ever  being  missed. 
Yet  it  stands  upon  the  ruins  of  a  temple  to  Jove,  and 
here  for  more  than  two  thousand  years  have  prayers 
and  praise  and  incense  gone  up  to  the  gods  of  the 
overarching  blue  that  looks  so  near,  so  that  even  stucco 
and  gilding  cannot  render  it  irreverent  or  lessen  its 
power  to  brood  the  children  of  earth  beneath  its  wings. 

Even  so  it  seemed  to-day,  for  merrily  and  thickly  as 
the  throngs  of  naked  little  stucco  cupids  chased  each 
other  on  the  walls,  infants  of  flesh  and  blood  in  gay 
rags  and  heavy  hob-nailed  shoes  swarmed  over  the 
marble  floor.  As  if  it  were  a  kindergarten  small  boys 
played  games  of  tag  around  the  columns,  small  girls 
trotted  about  more  demurely,  or  flocked  like  rows  of 
perching  sparrows  around  the  numerous  altars.  The 
church  resounded  with  the  hum  of  their  voices  and  the 
patter  of  their  feet;  yet  the  old  women  at  prayer  con- 
tinued their  devotions,  quite  undisturbed,  and  no  pass- 


TEMPLES  OF  CASTOR  AND  POLLUX,  GIRGENTI 
'LIFTING  THEMSELVES  AIRILY  FROM  A  SEA  OF  FLOWERS" 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  219 

ing  priest  or  sacristan  did  more  than  shake  a  gentle 
finger  at  some  especially  boisterous  youngster. 

The  sacristy  holds  the  jewel  of  the  Cathedral,  a 
ravished  jewel  which  does  not  belong  at  all  in  this 
ecclesiastical  setting — the  lovely  Greek  sarcophagus 
portraying  the  passionate  story  of  Hippolytus  and 
Phaedra.  This  is  the  one  remnant  now  left  to  Akragas 
out  of  all  her  treasures  of  Greek  art.  Found  in  the 
temple  of  Concord,  where  the  gentle  St.  Gregory  had 
probably  cherished  it,  the  Girgentians  offered  it  to 
their  Cathedral,  and  in  that  most  tolerant  of  churches 
it  served  for  long  as  the  High  Altar  until  influx  of  the 
outer  world  made  some  sense  of  its  incongruity  felt 
even  here.  At  one  end  of  the  tomb  Phaedra  swoons 
amourously  among  her  maidens,  their  delicate  little 
round  child-like  faces  and  soft-draped  forms  melting 
into  the  background  in  exquisite  low  relief.  Two  of  a 
more  stately  beauty  hold  up  the  Queen's  limp  arms 
and  support  her  as  she  confesses  to  her  old  nurse  the 
secret  passion  consuming  her  for  that  god-like  boy, 
son  of  her  own  husband,  whom  with  all  her  fiery  blood 
she  had  once  hated  as  illegitimate  rival  to  her  own  chil- 
dren, but  now  had  come  to  find  so  dear  that  she  "loved 
the  very  touch  of  his  fleecy  coat" — that  simple  grey- 
and-white  homespun  his  Amazon  mother's  loving 
fingers  had  woven.  In  high  bold  relief  of  interlacing 
trees  Hippolytus  on  the  other  side  hunts  as  joyously  as 
his  patroness  Artemis  herself.  Opposite,  arrested 
among  his  dogs  and  companions,  he  stands  in  the  clear 
purity  of  his  young  beauty,  like  "the  water  from  the 
brook  or  the  wild  flowers  of  the  morning,  or  the  beams 
of  the  morning  star  turned  to  human  flesh,"  turning 
away  his  head  from  the  bent  shrunken  form  of  the  old 


220  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

nurse  pleading  her  shameful  embassy.  And  on  the 
other  end  is  carved  the  tragedy  of  his  death,  the  re- 
venge of  Aphrodite  in  anger  at  his  obduracy  against 
herself  and  her  votary  Phaedra.  "Through  all  the 
perils  of  darkness  he  had  guided  the  chariot  safely 
along  the  curved  shore;  the  dawn  was  come,  and  a 
little  breeze  astir  as  the  grey  level  spaces  parted  deli- 
cately into  white  and  blue,  when  angry  Aphrodite 
awoke  from  the  deep  betimes,  rent  the  tranquil  sur- 
face; a  great  wave  leapt  suddenly  into  the  placid  dis- 
tance of  the  little  shore,  and  was  surging  here  to  the 
very  necks  of  the  plunging  horses,  a  moment  since  en- 
joying so  pleasantly  with  him  the  caress  of  the  morn- 
ing air,  but  now,  wholly  forgetful  of  their  old  affection- 
ate habit  of  obedience,  dragging  their  leader  headlong 
over  the  rough  pavements." 

Life  seemed  to  breathe  from  the  ivory-coloured 
marble.  So  vividly  had  its  creator's  hand  carried  out  the 
conception  of  his  brain  that  all  the  elapsed  centuries 
since  the  vision  of  beauty  had  come  to  him  were  but  as 
drifting  mists.  Races,  dynasties,  powers,  the  very  form 
of  the  earth  itself,  had  altered,  in  the  changing  ages,  but 
the  grace  of  this  little  dream  was  still  a  living  force. 

"Oh  Attic  shape!     Fair  Attitude!  with  brede 
Of  marble  men  and  maidens,  over  wrought 
With  forest  branches  and  the  trodden  weed; 
Thou,  silent  form,  dost  tease  us  out  of  thought 
As  doth  eternity;  Cold  Pastoral! 
When  old  age  shall  this  generation  waile 
Thou  shalt  remain,  in  midst  of  other  woe 
Than  ours,  a  friend  to  man,  to  whom  thou  say'st, 
'  Beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty,' — that  is  all 
Ye  know  on  earth,  and  all  ye  need  to  know." 


A   CITY  OF  TEMPLES  221 

On  the  steps  of  the  Cathedral  they  witnessed  a  pretty 
sight. 

" Peripatetica,"  announced  Jane,  "I  will  not  walk 
back  to  the  hotel!  It  may  be  only  one  mile  from  town, 
by  the  high  road,  but  it  was  certainly  four  by  that  short 
cut,  and  all  this  hill-climbing  on  slippery  cobbles  has 
turned  my  knees  to  tissue  paper.  The  boy  must  get 
us  a  cab— how  does  one  say  it  ?  You  tell  him." 

The  boy  hesitated  at  first  at  Peripatetica's  request, 
but  went  off  in  obedience  to  the  firm  command  of  her 
tone. 

Accustomed  to  the  ubiquitous,  ever  present  and  ever- 
pestering  cab  of  Taormina  and  Syracuse,  they  ex- 
pected his  instant  return.  But  the  minutes  passed  and 
passed,  and  sitting  on  the  parapet  of  the  Cathedral 
steps  they  had  long  opportunity  to  watch  the  world 
wag  on.  Apparently  it  was  "Children's  Day"  at  the 
Cathedral,  to  which  they  were  being  mustered  for 
catechism.  The  swarms  inside  were  now  explained. 
Though  it  had  seemed  as  if  every  child  in  town  must 
already  be  there,  they  were  still  flocking  in. 

Mites  of  every  size  and  sort  between  the  ages  of  two 
and  ten,  small  things  with  no  accompanying  elders, 
came  toiling  up  the  steep  streets  Cathedralwards, 
climbing  the  long  flights  of  steps  and  boldly  shoving 
into  the  great  doorway. 

But  the  different  manner  of  their  coming!  The  un- 
faltering steady  advance  of  the  devout — heads  brushed, 
shirts  and  frocks  clean,  faces  set  and  solemn,  no  words 
or  smiles  for  their  companions,  minds  fixed  on  duty. 
Little  girls  came  in  bands,  tongues  going  like  mill-hop- 
pers even  as  they  plunged  within  the  sacred  portal. 
Little  boys  enlivened  their  pilgrimage  with  chasings 


222  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

and  scuffles.  Wee  tots,  timidly  attached  to  the  hand 
of  some  patriarch  of  eight  or  nine;  receiving  therefrom 
protecting  encouragement,  or  being  ruthlessly  dragged 
along  at  the  top  speed  of  chubby  legs,  regardless  of  their 
streaming  tears.  Loiterers  arriving  with  panting  pink 
tongues,  stockings  half  off  and  dragging,  clothes  all  in 
disarray  from  some  too  delightful  game  on  the  way, 
plodding  breathless  up  the  steps  with  worried  rub- 
bings on  clothes  of  dirty  little  paws;  still  casting  re- 
luctant looks  at  the  sunshine  before  they  made  the 
plunge  behind  the  dark  leather  curtain.  Reprobates, 
at  the  very  last  refusing  to  enter  at  all;  refusing  to  ex- 
change the  outer  darkness  of  play  and  sunshine  for  the 
inner  light  of  wax  tapers  and  the  Catechism;  giving 
themselves  boldly  over  to  sin  on  the  very  Cathedral 
steps  in  merry  games  of  tag  and  loud  jeerings  and 
floutings  of  the  old  beggar  men  who  had  given  up  their 
sunny  posts  at  the  doors  in  attempts  to  drive  these 
backsliders  in.  And  the  Reluctant,  coming  with  slow 
and  dragging  feet;  heads  turned  back  to  all  the  mun- 
dane charms  of  the  streets,  lingering  as  long  as  possi- 
ble before  final  hesitating  entrance.  For  these  last  it 
was  very  hard  that,  straight  in  their  way,  just  in  front 
of  the  Cathedral,  a  brother  Girgentian,  whose  very 
tender  age  still  rendered  him  immune  from  religious 
duties,  was  thrillingly  disporting  himself  with  an  iron 
barrel-hoop  tied  to  a  string,  the  leg  of  a  chicken,  and 
two  most  delightful  mud-puddles.  The  care-free 
sportings  and  delicious  condition  of  dirt  of  this  Blessed 
Being  made  their  own  soaped  and  brushed  virtue  most 
cruelly  unsatisfying  to  many  of  the  Pilgrims.  But 
there  was  the  Infant  Example,  who,  with  crisp  short 
skirts  rustling  complacency,  and  Mother's  large  Prayer- 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  223 

book  cksped  firmly  to  her  bosom,  climbed  the  steps 
with  eyes  rolled  raptly  heavenwards  and  little  black 
pig-tails  vibrating  piety.  And  some  little  boys  with 
both  stockings  firmly  gartered,  jackets  irreproachably 
buttoned,  and  a  consciousness  of  all  the  answers  to  the 
Catechism  safely  bestowed  in  their  sleek  little  heads, 
made  their  way  in  eagerly,  wrapped  in  the  "  showing  off  " 
excitement.  These  little  Lambs  passed  coldly  and  dis- 
approvingly through  those  who  had  chosen  to  be  goats 
in  the  outer  sunshine.  But  many  small  ewes  sent 
glances  of  fearful  admiration  from  soft  dark  eyes  at 
those  bold  flouters  of  authority,  and  many  proper 
youths  looked  sidewise  at  them  so  longingly  it  was 
plain  that  only  the  fear  of  evil  report  taken  home  by 
sisters  in  tow,  kept  them  from  joining  the  Abandoned 
Ones. 

Peripatetica,  amused  and  interested,  forgot  the  flight 
of  time.  Jane,  suddenly  realizing  it,  cried : 

"That  boy  has  been  gone  a  half  hour — do  you  sup- 
pose you  really  told  him  to  get  a  cab?  I  believe  you 
must  have  said  something  wild  and  strange  which  the 
poor  thing  will  spend  the  rest  of  his  life  questing  while 
we  turn  into  lichens  on  this  parapet." 

Peripatetica,  indignantly  denying  this  slur  on  her 
Italian,  insisted  she  had  clearly  and  correctly  demanded 
a  cab,  and  a  cab  only. 

"I  remember,"  she  reflected,  "the  boy  looked  very 
troubled  as  he  went  off — and  now  that  I  come  to  think 
of  it,  we  haven't  met  a  horse  in  this  town  to-day.  The 
Romans  must  have  looted  all  the  conveyances  in  their 
last  sack  of  the  city;  the  only  one  left  is  now  kept  in 
the  Museum  in  a  glass  case,  and  allowed  out  for  no 
less  a  person  than  the  German  Emperor — but  I  won't 


224  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

walk  back.  I  should  suppose  the  boy  had  deserted 
us,  except  that  he  hasn't  been  paid." 

"Poor  little  wretch!  That  was  why  he  looked  so 
troubled,"  exclaimed  Jane.  "He  knew  the  long  and 
difficult  search  he  was  being  sent  upon,  and  perhaps 
thought  it  was  a  mere  Barbarian  ruse  to  shake  him  off, 
so  that  we  could  get  away  without  paying  him." 

As  she  spoke  the  sound  of  thudding  hoofs  echoed 
from  the  walls  of  the  Cathedral,  and  the  white  anxious 
face  of  their  guide  appeared  on  flying  legs.  The  reas- 
surance that  changed  his  expression  into  a  beaming 
smile  at  sight  of  the  two  still  there,  made  it  clear  that 
Jane's  supposition  had  been  correct.  He  had  evi- 
dently feared  to  find  both  his  clients  and  the  silver  re- 
wards of  his  labours  vanished.  The  relief  with  which 
he  gasped  out  his  explanation  of  having  had  to  go  all 
the  way  down  into  the  valley  to  the  railway  station  to 
get  a  carriage  which  was  now  on  its  way  while  he  had 
dashed  ahead  on  foot  up  a  short  cut,  was  so  pathetic 
they  gave  him  double  pay  to  console  him  for  his  worry. 

And  then  with  a  noise  between  the  rumble  of  a  thun- 
derstorm and  the  clatter  of  a  tinman's  wagon  came 
their  "carrozza."  Its  cushions  were  in  rags,  the  har- 
ness almost  all  rope,  one  door  was  off  a  hinge  and  swung 
merrily  useless — but  two  lean  steeds  drew  this  noble 
barouche  and  two  men  in  rags  sat  solemnly  on  its 
ricketty  box  with  such  an  air  of  importance  its  passen- 
gers felt  as  if  they  were  being  conducted  homeward  in 
a  chariot  of  state. 


Fortunate,  restored  to  favour,  was  leading  them  up 
the  Rupe  Athena,  that  rose  steeply  immediately  be- 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  225 

hind  their  hotel;  he  was  leading  them  not  straight  up, 
but  by  a  series  of  long  "biases" — as  Jane  expressed 
it.  The  end  of  the  first  bias  reached  the  little  lonely 
church  of  San  Biago,  dreary  and  uninteresting  enough 
in  its  solitary  perch,  save  for  the  fact  that  it  stood  upon 
the  site  of  a  temple  to  Demeter  and  Persephone: 

"Our  Lady  of  the  Sheaves, 
And  the  Lily  of  Hades,  the  Sweet 
Of  Enna" 

placed  here  no  doubt  because  this  high  spur  was  the 
only  point  in  Girgenti  from  which  one  could  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  lofty  steeps  of  Enna-Castrogiovanni. 

Turning  at  a  sharp  angle  again  they  went  slanting 
up  across  the  bare  hillside,  the  wild  thyme  sending  up 
a  keen  sweet  incense  beneath  their  climbing  feet,  until 
they  came  to  the  verge  of  the  great  yellow  broken  cliff 
that  shot  up  more  than  a  thousand  feet  from  the  valley 
below.  Some  crumpling  of  the  earth's  crust,  ages  ago, 
had  forced  up  this  sheer  mass  of  sandstone,  hung  now 
with  cactus,  thyme,  and  vines,  which  served  as  one  of 
the  natural  defences  of  Akragas,  behind  whose  unscal- 
able heights  the  unwarlike  city  had  been  enabled  peace- 
fully to  pursue  its  gathering  of  wealth  and  luxury. 

Fortunato,  leaning  over  the  marge,  clapped  his  hands 
suddenly,  and  a  cloud  of  rock  pigeons  flew  forth  from 
the  crevices,  to  wheel  and  flutter  and  settle  again 
among  the  vines.  Probably  descendants  of  those 
pigeons  who  lived  in  these  same  crevices  in  the  days  of 
the  monster  Phalaris,  and  helped  to  compass  his  death. 

Pythagoras — that  strange  wanderer  and  mystic, 
whose  outlines  loom  so  beautiful  and  so  incomprehen- 
sible through  the  vagueness  of  legend,  was  first  flat- 
tered and  then  threatened  by  the  Tyrant,  who  feared 
15 


226  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

the  philosopher's  teachings  of  freedom  and  justice. 
At  one  of  those  public  discussions,  so  impossible  in  any 
other  country  ruled  despotically,  and  yet  so  character- 
istically Greek — Pythagoras  rounded  a  burst  of  elo- 
quence by  pointing  to  a  flock  of  these  pigeons  fleeing 
before  a  hawk. 

"  See  what  a  vile  fear  is  capable  of,"  he  cried.  "  If  but  one  of  these 
pigeons  dared  to  resist  he  would  save  his  companions,  who  would 
have  time  to  flee." 

Fired  by  the  suggestion  the  old  Telemachus  threw 
a  stone  at  the  Tyrant  and  despite  the  efforts  of  his 
guards,  Phalaris  was  ground  to  a  bloody  paste  by  the 
stones  and  fury  of  the  suddenly  enfranchised  Akra- 
gantines. 


"It  is  our  last  day,"  Jane  had  said;  "we  will  go  and 
bid  the  temples  good-bye." 

Which  was  why  she  and  Peripatetica  were  scaling 
in  the  sunset  the  golden  cliffs  which  Concordia  crowned, 
having  come  to  it  by  a  detour  to  Theron's  tomb. 

They  drew  themselves  laboriously  up  to  the  crest, 
and  sank  breathlessly  upon  the  verge  among  the  crum- 
bled grave  pits,  where  the  Greeks  buried  their  dead 
along  the  great  Temple  road.  Not  only  their  beloved 
human  companions  they  interred  here,  but  the  horses 
who  had  been  Olympian  victors,  their  faithful  dogs, 
and  their  pet  birds.  It  was  in  rifling  these  graves,  in 
search  of  jewels  and  treasure,  that  the  greedy  Car- 
thagenians  had  reaped  a  hideous  pestilence  as  a  price 
of  their  impiety.  Now  the  graves  were  but  empty 
grass-grown  troughs,  and  one  might  sit  among  them 
safely  to  watch  the  skyey  glories  flush  across  the  sap- 


A  CITY  OF  TEMPLES  227 

phire  sea,  and  redden  the  hill  where  the  little  shrunken 
Girgenti  sent  down  the  soft  pealing  of  Cathedral 
chimes  from  her  airy  distance.  Beside  them  Concor- 
dia's  columns  deepened  to  tints  of  beaten  gold  in  the 
last  rays,  and  across  the  level  plain  far  below — already 
dusk — the  people  streamed  home  from  their  long  day's 
labour.  Flocks  of  silky,  antlered  goats  strayed  and 
cropped  as  they  moved  byre-wards,  urged  by  brown 
goatherds  who  piped  the  old  country  tunes  as  they 
went.  The  same  tunes  Theocritus  listened  to  in  the 
dusk  thousands  of  summers  since,  or  that  Empedocles, 
purple-clad,  and  golden-crowned,  might  have  heard 
vaguely  fluting  through  his  dreams  of  life  and  destiny 
as  he  meditated  beneath  these  temple  shadows  as  night 
came  down. 

Asses  pattered  and  tinkled  towards  the  farms,  laden 
with  crimson  burdens  of  sweet-smelling  lupin.  Painted 
carts  rattled  by  with  oil  or  wine;  and  cries  and  laugh- 
ter and  song  came  faintly  up  to  them  as  the  evening 
grew  grey. 

"How  little  it  changes,"  said  Peripatetica  wistfully. 
"We  will  pass  and  vanish  as  all  these  did  on  whose 
tombs  we  rest,  and  hundreds  of  years  from  now  there 
will  be  the  same  colours  and  the  same  songs  to  widen 
the  new  eyes  with  delight." 

"Let  us  be  grateful  for  the  joys  of  Theocritus,  and 
for  our  joys  and  for  the  same  joy  in  the  same  old  beau- 
ties of  those  to  come,"  said  Jane,  sententiously.  "  And 
let  us  go  home,  for  the  moon  is  rising." 

Large  and  golden  it  came  out  of  the  rosy  east,  the 
west  still  smouldering  with  the  dying  fires  of  the  ended 
day. 

Their  way  led  through  the  olive  orchards,  grown 


228  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

argent  in  the  faint  light,  and  taking  on  fresh  fantasies 
of  gnarling,  and  of  ghostly  resemblances  to  twisted, 
convoluted  human  forms.  Among  the  misty  olives  the 
blooming  pear-trees  showed  like  delicate  silvery-veiled 
brides  in  the  paling  dark,  and  with  the  falling  dew 
arose  the  poignant  incense  of  ripening  lemons,  of  blos- 
soming weeds,  and  of  earth  freshly  tilled. 

Wandering  a  little  from  the  faintly  traced  path, 
grown  invisible  in  the  vagueness  of  the  diffused  moon- 
radiance,  they  called  for  help  to  a  young  shepherd  go- 
ing lightly  homeward,  with  his  cloak  draped  in  long 
classic  folds  from  one  shoulder,  and  singing  under  his 
breath.  A  shepherd  who  may  have  been  merely  a 
commonplace,  handsome  young  Sicilian  by  day,  but 
who  in  this  magic  shining  dusk  was  the  shepherd  of  all 
pastoral  verse,  strayed  for  a  moment  from  Arcady. 
Following  his  swift  light  feet  they  were  set  at  last  into 
the  broad  road  among  the  herds  and  the  asses  and  the 
homing  labourers — Demeter's  well  beloved  children. 

"E'en  now  the  distant  farms  send  up  their  smoke, 
And  shadows  lengthen  from  the  lofty  hills. 

— Now  the  gloaming  star 
Bids  fold  the  flock  and  duly  tell  their  tale, 
And  moves  unwelcome  up  the  wistful  sky. 

Go  home,  my  full-fed  goats, 

Cometh  the  Evening  Star,  my  goats,  go  home." 


CHAPTER   VI 
THE  GOLDEN  SHELL 

"Kennst  du  das  Land,  wo  die  Citronen  bluh'n  ?" 

WHEN  Ulysses  Grant  had  ended  the  Civil  War  in 
America  and  was  made  President,  he  turned  from 
uttering  his  solemn  oath  of  office  before  the  cheering 
multitudes  and  said  under  his  breath  to  his  wife  who 
stood  beside  him,  in  that  tone  of  half-resentful,  half- 
weary  patience  the  American  husband  usually  adopts 
in  speaking  to  his  mate,  "Well,  now,  Julia,  I  hope 
you're  satisfied!" 

There  was  the  same  exasperated  patience  in  Jane's 
voice  as  she  climbed  into  the  railway  carriage  for  Pa- 
lermo and,  throwing  herself  back  upon  the  cushions, 
exclaimed: 

"  Well,  now,  Peripatetica,  I  hope  you've  had  enough 
of  the  Greeks!  For  my  part  I  go  on  to  the  next  course; 
something  a  little  more  modern.  Tombs  and  god- 
desses and  columns  and  myths  cloy  as  a  steady  diet  for 
months,  and  even  the  ridiculous  pompous  old  Eigh- 

229 


230  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

teenth  Century  would  seem  rather  home-like  and 
comfy  as  a  change.  I  could  find  it  in  my  heart  to 
relish  a  bit  of  the  odious  decadence  of  Vart  nouveau 
simply  by  way  of  contrast." 

Peripatetica  treated  this  shameful  outburst  with  all 
the  stern  contempt  it  so  truly  merited,  as  she  was  en- 
gaged in  making  the  acquaintance  of  a  descendant  of 
that  great  race  of  Northmen  who  had  made  history  all 
over  Sicily  and  the  rest  of  Europe.  He  too  was  a  con- 
queror, though  his  weapon  was  a  paint-brush  and  a 
modelling  tool  instead  of  a  sword,  and  kings  received 
him  with  all  the  honours  due  an  acknowledged  ruler 
of  a  realm.  He  dwelt  by  a  great  lake  far  to  the  north 
in  that  "nursery  of  kings"  in  a  home  built  five  hun- 
dred years  ago  of  huge  fir-trees;  logs  so  sound  and  clean- 
fibred  that  the  centuries  had  left  the  wood  still  as  firm 
as  stone.  Making  his  play  of  resurrection  of  the  old 
wild  melodies  of  the  North,  of  the  old  costumes  and  in- 
dustries of  the  people  from  whose  loins  had  sprung  half 
the  rulers  of  the  continent.  The  Sea  Rover's  blood  was 
strong  in  him  too,  driving  him  to  wander  in  a  boat  no 
bigger  than  those  of  his  Viking  ancestors  along  the  stormy 
fjords  and  fierce  coasts  to  the  still  more  distant  north. 

For  the  adornment  of  the  log-built  home  Sicily  had 
yielded  to  his  wise  searching  various  relics  of  antiquity, 
Greek,  Norman,  Saracen,  and  Spanish,  and  in  the 
ensuing  days  in  which  Jane  and  Peripatetica  were  per- 
mitted to  tread  the  same  path  with  the  Northman  and 
his  beautiful  wife,  these  treasures  came  out  of  pockets 
to  be  fitted  with  dates  and  history,  and  even,  in  the  de- 
lightful instance  of  one  small  ghostly  grotesque,  to 
change  owners. 

While  the  two  seekers  of  Persephone  were  gather- 


THE  GOLDEN  SHELL  231 

ing  and  savouring  this  refreshing  tang  of  the  cold  salt 
of  the  northern  seas,  this  large  vista  of  the  gay,  poised 
strength  of  a  mighty  race — their  train  was  looping  and 
coiling  through  summer  hills  to  the  seat  of  summer — 
cherry  and  apple,  peach  and  pear  trees  tossed  wreaths 
of  rose  and  white  from  amid  the  grey  of  olives  and  the 
green  of  citron,  for  this  was  the  land  of  Mignon's  home- 
sick dream — "das  Land,  wo  die  Citronen  bliih'n." 

Miles  and  miles  and  miles  of  orange  and  lemon 
groves  ran  beside  their  path;  climbing  the  hills  and 
creeping  down  to  the  edge  of  the  tideless  sea.  Trees 
that  were  nurtured  like  babies;  each  orchard  gathered 
about  old  grey  or  rose-washed  tanks  holding  the  pre- 
cious water  which  is  the  life-blood  of  all  this  golden 
culture  during  the  rainless  summer.  Tanks  moist 
and  dripping  and  fringed  with  ferns,  mirroring  the 
overhanging  yellow  fruit,  or  the  pink  geraniums  that 
peeped  over  the  shoulders  of  the  broad-bladed  cacti  to 
blush  happily  at  their  own  reflections  in  the  water. 

An  exquisite  form  of  orcharding,  this,  as  delicate  and 
perfect  as  a  hot-house,  with  every  inch  of  the  soil  util- 
ized for  the  vegetables  set  about  the  trees'  roots,  and 
the  trees  themselves  growing  in  unbelievable  numbers 
to  the  acre.  For  not  one  superfluous  leaf  or  branch 
was  there — just  the  requisite  number  to  carry  and 
nourish  the  greatest  possible  quantity  of  fruit.  In 
consequence  of  which  the  whole  land  was  as  if  touched 
by  some  vegetable  Midas  and  turned  all  to  gold.  Mil- 
lions and  millions  of  the  yellow  globes  hung  still  un- 
picked, though  already  the  trees  were  swelling  the  buds 
which  within  ten  days  were  to  break  forth  into  a  far- 
flung  bridal  wreath,  and  intoxicate  all  the  land  with 
honeyed  perfumes. 


232  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

And,  mark  you,  how  nations  are  influenced  by  their 
trees!  In  the  bad  old  days  of  constant  war  and  tur- 
moil the  isolated  family  was  never  secure,  and  the 
people  clung  to  the  towns,  but  modern  careful  culture 
of  the  orange  has  forced  orchardists  to  live  close  by 
their  charges,  and  the  population  is  being  slowly  pushed 
back  into  rural  life,  with  the  result  of  better  health, 
better  morals,  and  a  great  decrease  of  homicides.  One 
has  really  no  convenient  time  for  sticking  knives  into 
one's  friends  when  one  is  showing  lemon-trees  how  to 
earn  $400  an  acre  and  orange-trees  half  as  much.  .  .  . 

"It  is  the  most  beautiful  town  in  the  whole  world," 
said  Peripatetica  in  that  tiresomely  dogmatic  way  she 
has  of  expressing  the  most  obvious  fact. 

They  had  wandered  out  of  their  hotel,  and  through 
a  pair  of  stately  iron  gates  crowned  with  armorial 
beasts.  Beyond  the  gates  lay  a  garden.  But  a  gar- 
den! Acres  of  garden,  laced  by  sweeping  avenues, 
shadowed  by  cypress  and  stone  pines,  by  ilex  and  laurel. 
From  the  avenues  dipped  paths  which  wound  through 
boscoes,  looped  under  bridges  veiled  with  curtains  of 
wisteria  and  yellow  banksias,  climbed  again  to  pass 
through  pleached  walks;  paths  that  tied  themselves 
about  shadowy  pools  where  swans  floated  in  the  gloom 
of  palm  groves,  or  debouched  across  emerald  lawns 
where  clumps  of  forget-me-nots  and  cinerarias  made 
splashes  of  bold  colour  in  the  grass. 

"They  do  these  things  so  well  in  Europe,"  remarked 
Peripatetica  approvingly,  as  a  splendid  functionary,  in 
a  long  blue  coat  and  carrying  a  silver-headed  staff, 
lifted  his  cockaded  hat  to  them  as  they  entered  the 
gates.  "Now  where  at  home  would  one  find  one  of 
our  park  guardians  with  such  a  manner,  and  looking 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  233 

so  like  a  nobleman's  servant?  This,"  she  went  on,  in 
an  instructive  tone,  being  newly  arisen  from  a  guide- 
book, "is  the  Giardino  Inglese;  one  of  the  public 
parks,  and  it  has  exactly  the  air  of  loved  and  carefully 
tended  private  possession." 

They  lounged  over  the  parapets  of  the  carved  bridges, 
with  their  elbows  set  among  roses,  to  look  down  into 
the  little  ravines  where  small  runnels  flowed  among  the 
soft  pink-purple  clouds  of  Judas-trees.  They  were 
tempted  into  allies  bordered  their  whole  length  with  the 
white  fountains  of  blossoming  spireas,  or  hedged  on 
both  sides  by  pink  hermosas.  They  strolled  past 
clumps  of  feathery  bamboos  to  gaze  along  the  shadowy 
vistas  of  four  broad  avenues  meeting  at  a  bright  circle 
where  a  sculptured  fountain  tossed  its  waters  in  the 
sun.  They  lingered  in  paths  where  tea  roses  were 
garlanded  from  tree  to  tree,  or  by  walls  curtained  by 
Mare'chale  Niels.  They  inspected  the  nurseries  and 
admired  the  greenhouse.  They  came  with  delight  upon 
a  double  ring  of  giant  cypresses  lifting  dark  spires 
into  the  dazzling  blue  of  the  sky,  and  sat  to  rest  hap- 
pily upon  a  great  curved  marble  seat  whose  back  had 
lettered  upon  it  a  reminder  to  the  "Shadowed  Soul" 
that  wisdom  comes  only  in  shade  and  peace. 

"E  La  Sagezza  Vieni  Solo 
Nel'  Ombra  E  Pace." 

And  finally  they  mounted  the  little  tiled  and  columned 
belvedere  hanging  at  the  corner  of  the  garden's  lofty 
wall  to  gaze  upon  a  view  unrivalled  of  this  most  beau- 
tifully placed  city. 

Palermo  lay  stretched  before  them  in  its  plain  of  the 
Conca  d'Oro — the  golden  shell.  Round  it  as  a  gar- 


234  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

land  rose  a  semicircle  of  vapoury  mountains  like  rosy- 
purple  clouds,  bending  on  beyond  the  plain  on  either 
side  to  clasp  a  bay  of  dazzling  violet  whose  waters 
glowed  at  the  city's  feet;  the  city  itself  warmly  cream- 
tinted  and  roofed  with  dull  red  tiles.  A  city  towered, 
columned,  arched;  with  here  the  ruddy  bubbles  of  San 
Giovanni  degli  Eremiti's  domes,  there  the  tall  spires  and 
fretted  crest  of  the  Cathedral;  and  flowing  through  it 
all,  or  resting  here  and  there  in  pools,  the  green  of 
orange  groves,  the  flushing  mist  of  Judas-trees,  the 
long  stream  of  verdant  parks  and  gardens. 

"Not  only  is  this  the  loveliest  city  in  the  whole 
world,"  said  Jane,  "but  this  is  also  the  sweetest  of  all 
gardens,  and  a  curious  thing  is  that  we  seem  to  have 
it  quite  to  ourselves.  You'd  suppose  all  Palermo 
would  want  to  come  here  for  at  least  half  of  every  day, 
but  not  a  soul  have  we  met  except  those  two  dear, 
queer  old  gardeners  sitting  on  the  tank's  edge  playing 
a  game  with  orange  seeds." 

"Well,  if  the  Palermians  haven't  intelligence  enough 
to  use  such  a  garden,  we  have,"  announced  Peripatetica. 
"And  we  will  come  here  every  day." 

Which  they  did  for  a  while;  bringing  their  fountain 
pens  to  write  letters  in  the  bosco,  or  resting  after  sight- 
seeing in  the  cool  shade  of  the  cypress  ring.  And  it 
might  have  served  them  to  the  end  as  their  intimate 
joy  had  it  not  been  for  Peripatetica's  insane  passion 
for  gardening. 

All  about  the  edge  of  the  long  tapis  vert  which  lay 
before  the  handsome  building  at  the  end  of  the  garden 
— a  building  which  they  supposed  housed  some  lucky 
park  official — stood  at  intervals  fine  standard  roses. 
Now  one  unlucky  day  Peripatetica  descried  aphides  upon 


A 


THE  GOLDEN  SHELL  235 

the  delicate  shoots  and  young  buds  of  these  standards. 
That  was  sufficient.  An  aphis,  to  her  rose-growing 
mind,  is  a  noxious  wild  beast,  and  promptly  stripping 
off  her  gloves  she  ravened  among  them. 

"Perhaps  you'd  better  leave  them  alone,"  warned 
Jane  in  a  whisper.  "  The  gardeners  look  so  surprised." 

"By  no  means!"  objected  Peripatetica  in  lofty  ob- 
stinacy, with  a  backward  glance  of  contempt  at  the 
visibly  astonished  attendants.  "The  city  no  doubt 
pays  them  well  to  grow  roses,  and  I  mean  to  shame 
them  for  this  indecent  neglect  of  their  duties.  Besides, 
I  am  enjoying  it  immensely;  I've  been  hungering  and 
thirsting  for  a  little  gardening." 

That  very  day  it  was  conveyed  to  their  intelligence 
— or  their  lack  of  it — that  they  had  not  been  enjoying 
the  Giardino  Inglese,  a  dull  park  which  lay  almost 
opposite,  but  had  been  calmly  annexing  the  private 
grounds  of  Prince  Travia.  He,  however,  being  a 
model  of  princely  courtesy,  was  glad  to  have  the  foreign 
ladies  amuse  themselves  there  as  much  as  they  liked. 
Only  once  more  did  they  see  it;  on  the  day  of  de- 
parture, when  they  blushingly  left  a  tip  in  the  hands  of 
the  handsome  old  silver-staffed  portiere,  who  had  truly 
looked  like  a  nobleman's  servant,  and  behaved  like 
one  as  he  saluted  them  with  unprotesting  dignity  each 
time  they  had  passed  in  and  out  of  that  beauteous  spot 
in  which  they  had  no  right  to  be. 

There  were  many  other  gardens  in  Palermo,  but 
none  so  fair.  The  green  world  was  so  enchanting  in 
this  glowing  spring  that  a  day  of  villegiatura  was  nec- 
essary between  every  two  days  of  sight-seeing,  and  hav- 
ing been  banished  from  the  Travia  garden  by  their 
own  innate  sense  of  decency,  they  took  lunch  in  their 


236  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

pockets  and  set  out  for  the  famous  Villa  Giulia  which 
had  aroused  such  enthusiasm  in  Goethe. 

The  Villa  Giulia,  as  they  might  have  foreseen,  was 
just  the  sort  of  thing  Goethe  would  have  liked — and 
they  had  been  violently  disagreeing  with  Goethe  all 
over  Sicily.  An  untouched  example  of  the  most  tire- 
some form  of  Eighteenth  Century  gardening — a  cross 
between  a  wedding  cake  and  a  German  Noah's  Ark. 
All  rigid,  glaring,  gravelly  little  allees,  with  trees  as 
denuded  of  natural  luxuriance  as  a  picked  chicken; 
sugar-icing  grottoes;  baroque  fountains;  gaudy  music 
kiosks;  cages  of  frowzy  birds  and  mangy  monkeys; 
and  pose  busts  in  self-conscious  bowers.  Not  here 
could  these  Eden-exiled  Eves  lunch,  nor  yet  in  the  un- 
tidy, uninteresting  Botanic  Gardens  next  door — a  wil- 
derness of  potted  specimens  and  obtrusive  labels — but 
wandering  melancholily  around  a  vast  egregious  gas 
tank,  they  came  upon  a  long,  neglected  avenue  of  great 
trees;  all  that  was  left  of  some  once  lovely  villa  swept 
out  of  existence  by  the  gas  works.  And  here  upon  a 
stone  bench  in  the  glimmering  shade  they  fed  at  the 
feet  of  a  feeble  little  knock-kneed  marble  King.  One 
of  the  Spanish  monarchs  of  Sicily  it  was,  thus  commem- 
orated in  marble  Roman  armour  and  a  curled  marble 
wig,  and  his  rickety,  anaemic  majesty  moved  them  to 
smiling  pity,  so  feeble  and  miserable  he  looked,  for- 
gotten and  overshadowed  by  modern  gas  tanks,  his 
boneless  legs  ready  to  give  under  him,  and  his  peevish 
face  smeared  with  creeping  lichens.  The  green  tunnel 
of  the  trees  framed  a  blazing  sapphire  at  the  other  end 
— a  glimpse  of  the  bay — and  ragged  pink  roses,  and 
neglected  purple  iris  bloomed  together  along  the  path. 
Ere  another  year  the  blight  of  the  gas  works  will  have 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  237 

swept  away  the  airy  avenue,  the  wilding  flowers,  the 
poor  spineless  little  King,  and  the  two  bid  it  all  a  wist- 
fully smiling  farewell,  knowing  they  should  never  again 
eat  an  April  day's  bread  and  cheese  under  those  sweet 
auspices. 

.  .  .  Will  travellers  from  the  roaring  cities  of  Central 
Africa  come  a  couple  of  centuries  hence  and  mark  with 
regret  the  last  bit  of  some  now  flourishing  boscage 
being  eaten  away  by  Twenty-Second  Century  prog- 
ress, and  smile  indulgently  at  one  of  our  foolishly  feeble 
statues,  in  granite  frock  coats,  tottering  to  lichened  ob- 
livion ?  No  doubt.  Palermo  has  seen  so  many  changes 
since  the  Phoenicians  used  to  trade  and  build  along 
this  coast.  For  this  was  the  Carthagenian  "sphere  of 
influence"  from  the  first,  and  the  Greeks  were  here 
but  little,  and  have  left  no  traces  in  Palermo,  though 
in  the  long  wars  between  Carthagenian  and  Greek  it 
was  captured  by  the  latter  from  time  to  time,  and  held 
for  a  space.  The  Greeks  called  it  Panormous — mean- 
ing all  harbour,  for  in  their  day  deep  water  curved 
well  up  into  the  town,  where  are  now  streets  and  pal- 
aces and  hotels.  Of  course  Rome  held  it  for  a  while, 
as  she  held  pretty  nearly  everything.  Held  it  for  close 
upon  a  thousand  years — with  the  Goths  for  its  masters 
at  one  interval — but  there  are  few  traces  of  Rome 
either,  and  then  the  Arabs  took  it  and  set  their  seal  so 
deep,  in  less  than  two  centuries,  that  after  the  lapse  of 
nearly  another  thousand  years  their  occupation  is  still 
visible  at  every  turn.  For  under  the  Saracens  it  was 
a  capital,  and  after  their  destruction  of  Syracuse,  which 
ended  Greek  domination  in  the  Island,  it  gained  a  pre- 
eminence among  Sicilian  cities  never  afterwards  lost. 

That  garrulous  old  traveller  from  Bagdad,  Ibn  Hau- 


238  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

kal,  writing  in  943,  says  that  Palermo  then  had  a  most 
formidable  nine-gated  wall,  a  population  of  close  upon 
half  a  million,  and  many  mosques.  He  also  says  that 
near  where  the  Cathedral  now  stands  was  a  great  swamp 
full  of  papyrus  plants,  serving  not  only  for  paper  but 
for  the  manufacture  of  rope. 

Already  Sicily  was  beginning  to  suffer  from  the  scar- 
city of  water,  and  the  merchant  from  Bagdad,  accus- 
tomed to  the  abundant  pools  and  conduits  of  his  own 
city,  makes  severe  comments  upon  the  lack  of  these  in 
Palermo.  It  could  only  have  been  by  contrast,  how- 
ever, that  the  Palermians  could  have  seemed  to  Haukal 
dirty,  because  Jane  and  Peripatetica,  going  to  see  a 
part  of  the  old  Moorish  quarter,  in  process  of  demoli- 
tion, found  multitudinous  water-pipes  in  the  houses, 
entering  almost  every  chamber.  Haukal  says  that  the 
Greek  philosopher  Aristotle  was  buried  in  one  of  the 
mosques  of  Palermo,  and  he  opines  that  the  most  seri- 
ous defect  of  the  citizens  was  their  universal  consump- 
tion of  onions.  Peripatetica — to  whom  that  repulsive 
vegetable  is  a  hissing  and  an  astonishment — read  aloud 
in  clamant  sympathy  this  outburst  of  Haukal's: 

"There  is  not  a  person  among  them,  high  or  low, 
who  does  not  eat  them  in  his  house  daily,  both  in  the 
morning  and  at  evening.  This  is  what  has  ruined  their 
intelligence  and  affected  their  brains  and  degraded  their 
senses  and  distracted  their  faculties  and  crushed  their 
spirits  and  spoiled  their  complexions,  and  so  altogether 
changed  their  temperaments  that  everything,  or  almost 
everything,  appears  to  them  quite  different  from  what 
it  is." 

"That  gentleman  from  Bagdad  is  a  man  after  my 
own  heart,"  she  declared  triumphantly.  "I  have  al- 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  239 

ways  been  sure  that  people  who  eat  onions  must  be 
those  to  whom  'almost  everything  appears  quite  differ- 
ent from  what  it  is,'  for  if  they  had  the  slightest  idea  of 
'what  it  is'  for  other  people  to  be  near  them  after  they 
have  indulged  that  meretricious  appetite  they  would 
certainly  never  do  it!" 

This  Arab  impress,  though  visible  everywhere,  is 
more  a  general  atmosphere  than  definite  remains;  for 
with  but  few  exceptions  their  creations  are  so  overlaid 
and  modified  by  subsequent  Occidental  work  that  it 
glows  through  this  overlay  rather  than  defines  itself. 
It  was  while  searching  for  Moorish  fragments  that  Jane 
and  Peripatetica  came  upon  La  Ziza.  The  guide- 
books unanimously  asserted  that  Al  Aziz — La  Ziza — 
was  the  work  of  the  Norman  King,  William  I.,  but  the 
guide-books,  they  had  long  since  discerned,  were  as 
prone  to  jump  to  unwarranted  conclusions,  and,  hav- 
ing jumped,  to  be  as  aggravatingly  cocksure  in  stick- 
ing to  their  mistakes  as  was  Peripatetica  herself.  So 
they  took  leave  to  doubt  this  assertion,  and  concluded 
that  William  probably  seized  the  lovely  country-house 
of  some  Moorish  magnate,  adding  to  it  sufficiently  to 
make  of  it  a  "lordly  pleasure  dome"  for  himself  in  the 
wide  orange  gardens,  but  the  core  of  the  place  was 
wholly  Moorish  in  character;  well  worth  the  annexing, 
well  worth  its  name  Al  Aziz — The  Beloved. 

They  came  through  the  hot,  white  sunshine  up  wide, 
low  steps,  through  a  huge  grille  in  an  enormous  arch- 
way, to  find  a  windowless  room  where  the  glaring  day 
paled  to  glaucous  shadow  against  the  green  tiles  of  a 
lofty  chamber,  as  cool  and  glistening  as  a  sea  cave. 
And  the  sound  of  rippling  water  echoed  from  the  lu- 
cent sides  and  honeycomb  vaultings,  for  a  shining 


240  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

fountain  gushed  from  the  wall  into  a  tiled  channel  of 
irregular  levels,  artfully  planned  to  chafe  the  sliding 
water  into  music  before  it  slept  for  awhile  in  a  pool, 
and  then  slipped  again  through  another  channel  to 
another  pool,  and  so  passed  from  the  chamber — hav- 
ing glinted  over  its  shining  path  of  gold  and  green  and 
blue,  and  having  filled  the  place  with  cool  moisture  and 
clear  song. 

"With  fierce  noons  beaming, 
Moons  of  glory  gleaming, 
Full  conduits  streaming 
Where  fair  bathers  lie — " 

Quoted  Peripatetica — who  might  be  safely  counted  on 
to  have  a  tag  of  verse  concealed  about  her  person  for 
every  possible  occasion. 

"  Did  you  ever  see  anything  that  so  adequately  em- 
bodied the  Arab  conception  of  pleasure?  Coolness, 
moisture,  the  singing  of  water,  noble  proportions,  and 
clean  colour  wrought  into  grave  and  continent  devices  ? 
Was  there  ever  anything,"  she  went  on,  "so  curious  as 
the  contradictions  of  racial  instincts  ?  Who  could  sup- 
pose that  this  would  be  the  home-ideal  of  those  wild 
desert  dwellers  who  always  loved  and  fought  like  de- 
mons; who  were  the  most  voluptuous,  the  most  cruel, 
the  most  poetic  and  the  'so  fightingest'  race  the  world 
has  probably  ever  seen!" 

"Oh,  contradictions!"  laughed  Jane.  "Here's  a 
flat  contradiction,  if  you  like.  Please  contempkte  the 
delicious,  the  exquisite  absurdities  of  these  frescoes." 

For,  needless  to  say,  the  Eighteenth  Century  had  not 
allowed  to  escape  so  exquisite  an  opportunity  to  make 
an  ass  of  itself,  and  had  spread  over  the  clean,  com- 
posed patterns  of  the  tiled  walls  a  layer  of  lime-wash 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  241 

on  which  it  had  proceeded  to  paint  in  coarse,  bright 
colours  indecently  unclad  goddesses,  all  flushed  blowzy 
and  beribboned;  all  lolloping  amourously  about  on 
clouds  or  in  chariots,  or  falling  into  the  arms  of  be- 
wigged  deities  of  war  or  of  love.  Fortunately  the 
greater  part  of  these  gross  conceptions  had  been  dili- 
gently scrubbed  away,  but  enough  remained  to  make 
Peripatetica  splutter  indignantly: 

"Well,  of  all  the  hideous  barbarians!  The  Eigh- 
teenth Century  was  really  the  darkest  of  dark  ages." 

"My  dear,"  Jane  explained  contemptuously,  "the 
Eighteenth  Century  wasn't  a  period  of  time.  It  was 
merely  a  deplorable  state  of  mind.  And  the  mind 
seems  to  have  been  slightly  tipsy,  it  was  so  fantastic 
and  ridiculous,  and  yet  so  gravely  self-satisfied." 

La  Cuba,  another  Saracenic  relic,  was  so  obliterated 
into  the  mere  military  barrack  to  which  it  had  been 
transformed  that  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  pass 
on  to  the  Normans,  and  to  great  Roger  de  Hauteville, 
a  fit  companion  of  the  Paladins,  so  heavy  a  "  Hammer 
of  the  Moors"  was  he — so  knightly,  so  romantic,  so 
beautiful. 

Not  until  twelve  years  after  that  bold  attempt  at 
Messina  to  conquer  a  kingdom  with  only  sixty  com- 
panions was  Roger  able  to  enter  Palermo,  and  he  and 
his  nephews  chose  for  themselves  "delectable  gardens 
abounding  with  fruit  and  water,  and  the  knights  were 
royally  lodged  in  an  earthly  paradise." 

No  hideous  massacre  or  sack  followed  the  taking  of 
Palermo,  for  though  Roger  had  conquered  the  island 
for  himself  he  was  a  true  mirror  of  chivalry,  and  was 
never  cruel.  He  was  chivalrous  not  only  to  the  de- 
feated, but  to  those  other  helpless  creatures,  women,  who 
16 


242  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

in  his  day  were  mere  pawns  in  the  great  military  and 
political  games  played  by  the  men;  married  whether 
they  would  or  no,  and  unmarried  without  heed  of  any 
protest  from  them;  thrust  into  convents  against  their 
wishes,  and  haled  out  of  convents  if  they  were  needed. 
And  swept  ruthlessly  from  the  board  when  they  had 
served  their  purpose,  or  when  they  got  in  the  way  of 
those  fierce  pieces  passaging  back  and  forth  across  the 
chequered  squares  of  the  field  of  life.  Roger  loved  the 
Norman  maid  Eremberga  from  his  early  boyhood,  it 
appears,  and  as  soon  as  his  hazardous  fortunes  would 
permit  she  was  had  out  from  Normandy,  and  the  his- 
tory of  the  great  soldier  is  full  of  his  devotion,  and  of 
her  fidelity  and  courage.  As  at  the  siege  of  Troina, 
when  the  two  were  reduced  by  hunger  and  cold  to  the 
greatest  extremities,  sharing  one  cloak  between  them, 
so  that  finally  Roger,  rendered  desperate  by  his  wife's 
sufferings,  burst  through  the  ring  of  Saracens,  leaving 
her  to  defend  the  fortress  with  unshaken  valour  until 
he  returned  with  a  force  adequate  to  save  her,  and  raise 
the  siege. 

There  is  an  amusing  story  of  Roger  and  his  eldest 
brother,  that  ruthless  old  fox,  Robert  Guiscard.  They 
were  fighting  one  another  at  the  time,  and  Roger's  sol- 
diers captured  Robert,  who  was  disguised  and  spying. 
He  with  difficulty  rescued  Robert  from  the  angry  cap- 
tors, took  him  to  a  private  room,  kissed  him,  helped 
him  to  escape,  and  promptly  next  day  fell  upon  his 
forces  with  such  fury  that  Robert  was  glad  to  make 
peace  and  fulfil  the  broken  promises  which  had  caused 
the  dispute.  .  .  . 

It  was  not  Roger,  the  great  Count — he  had  little  time 
in  his  busy  life  for  building — but  his  son  Roger  the 


THE  GOLDEN  SHELL  243 

King,  who  raised  the  great  pile  at  Monreale  which 
Jane  and  Peripatetica  were  on  their  way  to  see.  Not 
by  way  of  the  winding  rocky  road  which  for  centuries 
the  pious  pilgrims  had  climbed,  but  whisked  up  the 
heights  by  an  electric  tram  which  pretended  it  was  a 
moving-picture  machine,  displaying  from  its  windows 
an  ever  widening  panorama  of  burning  blue  sea,  of 
pink  and  purple  mountains,  of  valleys  down  which 
flowed  rivers  of  orange  groves,  of  a  domed  and  spired 
city  in  the  plain,  and  a  foreground  freaked  with  an 
astonishing  carpet  of  flowers. 

"If  you  were  to  see  that  in  a  picture  you  wouldn't 
believe  it,"  quoted  Jane  from  the  famous  Book  of 
Bromides,  writhing  her  neck  like  an  uneasy  serpent  in 
an  endeavour  to  see  it  all  at  once. 

"No,  of  course,  you  wouldn't,"  said  Peripatetica  re- 
sentfully. "And  when  we  try  to  tell  it  to  people  at 
home  they'll  simply  say  our  style  is  '  plushy.'  There's 
nothing  so  resented  as  an  attempt  to  carry  back  in 
words  to  a  pale-coloured  country  the  incredible  splen- 
dours of  the  south.  The  critics  always  call  it  'orchid 
and  cockatoo  writing,'  and  sulkily  declare,  whenever 
they  do  have  a  fairly  nice  colourful  day,  that  they  are 
sure  the  tropics  have  nothing  finer,  whereas,  if  they 
only  knew,  it  is  but  an  echo  of  an  echo  of  the  real 
thing,  and — "  but  words  failed  even  Peripatetica. 

On  the  breezy  height,  dominating  all  the  deep-toned 
landscape,  stood  the  Abbey  church  of  Monreale — truly 
a  royal  mount,  crowned  by  one  of  the  finest  shrines  in 
Europe.  The  famous  bronze  doors  of  the  main  en- 
trance had  been  oxidised  by  time  and  weather  with  a 
patine  of  greens  and  blues  that  lent  subtle  values  to 
the  bold  delicate  modelling  of  the  metal,  framed  in  a 


244  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

toothed  doorway  of  warm,  cream-tinted  stone,  whose 
magic  harmony  of  colour  was  a  fitting  preliminary  to 
the  lofty  glories  of  the  interior.  An  unbelievable  in- 
terior! faced  throughout  its  three  hundred  and  thirty- 
three  feet  of  length  with  millions  upon  millions  of  tiny 
stones,  gold  and  red  and  blue — stones  of  every  colour. 
For  all  the  interior  they  found,  up  to  the  very  roof, 
was  of  this  dim,  glowing,  gold-mosaic  set  with  pictures 
of  the  Christian  faith — the  creation  of  Adam  and  Eve, 
the  temptation  by  the  Serpent,  the  casting  out  from 
Eden,  the  wrestling  of  Jacob,  the  whole  Bible  history, 
culminating  above  the  altar  in  a  gigantic  Christ.  More 
than  700,000  square  feet  of  pictures  made  of  bits  of 
stone;  and  around  and  about  pulpit,  ambo,  and  altar, 
across  steps  and  pavement,  and  enclosing  every  win- 
dow and  door,  lovely  mosaic  patterns  and  devices,  no 
two  alike.  .  .  . 

Brown-faced  old  peasants  pushed  aside  the  leathern 
curtain  at  the  entrance  and  knelt,  crossing  themselves, 
in  the  shadow  of  enormous  pillars,  as  their  forebears 
had  knelt  and  crossed  themselves  there  for  a  thousand 
years.  A  mass  droned  from  a  side  altar.  Groups  of 
young  priests-in-the-making  sauntered  gossipping  in 
whispers,  or  coming  and  going  on  ecclesiastic  errands. 
Knots  of  tourists  stared  and  wandered  about  the  great 
spaces,  and  from  behind  the  high  altar  rose  boys'  voices 
at  choir  practice,  echoing  thin  and  pure  from  the  painted 
roof. 

Of  all  the  Norman  print  upon  Sicily  nothing  gave 
like  this  great  church  a  sense  of  the  potency  of  Tancred 
de  Hauteville  and  his  mighty  brood.  For  no  defacing 
hand  has  been  laid  upon  this  monument  to  their  piety 
and  power.  It  stands  as  they  wrought,  tremendous, 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  245 

glorious;  commemorating  the  winning  of  the  kingship 
of  the  Land  of  the  Gods.  A  story  as  strange  as  any  of 
the  myths  of  the  mythic  world.  And  perhaps  thou- 
sands of  years  hence  the  historians  will  relegate  the 
Norman  story,  too,  to  the  catalogue  of  the  incredible — 
to  the  list  of  the  sun-myths;  and  Tancred  will  be 
thought  of  as  a  principle  of  life  and  fecundity — his 
twelve  strong  sons  be  held  to  be  merely  signs  of  months 
and  seasons. 

Of  the  great  Benedictine  Abbey  founded  by  William 
in  connection  with  the  Cathedral  almost  nothing  re- 
mains unaltered  except  the  delicious  cloistered  court 
with  its  fountain,  and  its  two  hundred  and  sixteen  deli- 
cate, paired  columns,  no  two  alike,  and  with  endless 
variations  of  freakish  capitals. 

All  this  freshness  and  richness  of  invention  resulted 
from  the  mingling  of  the  Saracen  with  the  Norman,  all 
this  early  work  being  wrought  by  Moslem  hands  under 
Norman  direction,  since  King  Roger  and  King  William 
were  no  bigots,  and,  giving  respect  and  security  to  their 
Saracen  subjects,  could  command  in  return  their  skilled 
service  and  fine  taste.  So  that  this  bold,  springing, 
early  Norman  architecture,  Gothic  in  outward  form,  is 
adorned  by  the  chaste,  delicate  minuteness  of  the  grave 
Arab  ornament. 

...  It  is  Palm  Sunday,  and  Jane  and  Peripatetica 
are  at  a  reception — otherwise  a  Sicilian  high  mass. 
They  have  come,  still  on  the  trail  of  their  beloved  Nor- 
mans, who  have  almost  ousted  the  Greeks  in  their 
affections,  to  the  Cappelk  Palatina  in  the  Royal  Palace. 
The  chapel  is  less  than  a  third  as  large  as  Monreale 
but  is  even  more  golden,  more  dimly  splendid,  more 
richly  beautiful  than  the  Abbey  Church.  It  is  crowded 


246  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

to  the  doors.  Everywhere  candles  wink  and  drip  in 
the  blue  clouds  of  incense.  The  voices  of  boys  soar  in 
a  poignant  treble,  and  the  organ  tones  of  men  answer 
antiphonally.  The  priests  mutter  and  drone,  and  oc- 
casionally take  snuff.  Mass  goes  on  at  a  dozen  side 
altars,  oblivious  of  the  more  stately  ceremonies  con- 
ducted in  the  chancel.  The  congregation  comes  and 
goes.  A  family  with  all  the  children,  including  baby 
and  nounou,  enter  and  pray  and  later  go  out.  Aris- 
tocrats and  their  servants  kneel  side  by  side.  The 
crowd  thickens  and  melts  again,  and  companions  sepa- 
rate to  choose  different  altars  and  different  masses, 
according  to  taste.  All  are  familiar,  friendly,  at  ease. 
The  divine  powers  are  holding  a  reception,  and  wor- 
shippers, having  paid  their  respects,  feel  free  to  leave 
when  they  like.  Long  palm  branches  are  carried  to 
the  altar  from  time  to  time  by  arriving  visitors,  each 
branch  more  splendid  than  the  last.  Palms  braided 
and  knotted,  fluttering  with  ribbons,  tied  with  rosettes 
of  scarlet  and  blue,  wrought  with  elaborate  intricacies 
— hundreds  of  branches,  which  are  solemnly  sanctified, 
asperged,  censed,  with  many  genuflections.  Priests  in 
gold,  in  white,  in  scarlet,  accompanied  by  candles, 
swinging  censors  and  chanting,  take  up  the  palms  and 
make  a  circuit  of  all  the  altars  among  the  kneeling 
worshippers,  and  finally  distribute  the  branches  to 
their  owners  who  bear  their  treasures  away  proudly. 

With  them  go  Jane  and  Peripatetica,  joining  a  group, 
who,  having  paid  their  respects  to  heaven,  are  now 
ambitious  to  inspect  the  state  chambers  in  the  pakce 
of  their  earthly  sovereign.  These  prove  to  be  the  usual 
dull,  uninviting  apartments — flaring  with  gilt,  and  with 
the  satins  of  criard  colours  which  modern  royalty  al- 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  247 

ways  affect.  There  are  the  usual  waxed  floors,  the 
usual  uncomfortable  fauteuils  ranged  stiffly  against 
walls  hung  with  inferior  pictures,  that  are  so  tediously 
characteristic  of  palaces,  and  it  is  with  relief  and  de- 
light that  Jane  and  Peripatetica  find  sandwiched  amid 
these  vulgar  rooms  two  small  chambers  that  by  some 
miracle  have  escaped  the  ravages  of  the  upholsterer. 
Two  chambers,  left  intact  from  Norman  days,  that  are 
like  jewel  caskets.  Walls  panelled  with  long  smooth 
slabs  of  marble,  grown  straw-coloured  with  age,  the 
delicate  graining  of  the  stone  being  matched  like  the 
graining  of  fine  wood;  panels  set  about  with  rich  mo- 
saics of  fantastic  birds  and  imaginary  beasts  framed  in 
graceful  arabesques.  These  are  the  Stanza.  Ruggiero; 
the  rooms  occupied  by  King  Roger,  the  furnishings, 
such  scant  bits  as  there  are,  being  also  of  his  time. 

"In  Roger's  day,"  commented  Jane,  "kings  were 
not  content  with  housings  and  plenishings  of  the  '  Early 
Pullman,  or  Late  Hamburg- American  School';  they 
knew  how  to  be  kingly  in  their  surroundings." 

"It's  a  curious  fact,"  agreed  Peripatetica,  "that  there 
isn't  a  modern  palace  in  Europe  that  a  self-respecting 
American  millionaire  wouldn't  blush  to  live  in.  No 
one  ever  hears  of  great  artists  being  called  upon  to 
design  or  beautify  a  modern  royal  residence.  Bad 
taste  in  furnishing  seems  universal  among  latter-day 
kings,  who  appear  to  form  their  ideas  of  domestic  deco- 
ration from  second-rate  German  hotels.  Fancy  any 
one  seeing  the  high  purity  and  beauty  of  Roger's  cham- 
bers and  then  ordering  such  ruthless  splashings  of  gilt 
and  cotton  satin!  Why,  even  'the  best  families'  of 
Podunk  or  Kalamazoo  would  gibe  at  the  contrast,  and 
as  for  the  Wheat  and  Pork  Kings  of  Denver  or  Chicago 


248  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

— they  would  have  the  whole  place  made  epoque  in  a 
week,  if  they  had  to  corner  the  lard  market,  or  form  a 
breakfast-food  trust  to  be  able  to  afford  it!" 


"God  made  the  day  to  be  followed  by  the  night. 
The  moon  and  stars  are  at  His  command.  Has  He 
not  created  all  things  ?  Is  He  not  Lord  of  all  ?  Blessed 
be  the  Everlasting  God!" 

Jane  was  reading  aloud  from  her  guide-book. 

They  had  been  to  Cefalu,  looking  for  Count  Roger 
in  the  great  Cathedral  built  by  his  son,  but  found  that 
he  had  vanished  long  ago,  and  his  sarcophagus  was  in 
Naples.  They  had  found  instead  traces  of  Sikel, 
Greek,  and  Roman;  had  lingered  long  before  the 
splendid  church,  so  noble  even  in  decay,  and  now  they 
were  back  again  in  Palermo,  still  on  the  track  of  their 
Normans.  What  Jane  read  from  her  book  was  also 
inscribed  over  the  portal  of  Palermo's  Cathedral  be- 
fore which  they  stood,  but  being  carved  in  Cufic  script, 
and  Jane's  Cufic  being — to  put  it  politely — not  fluent 
enough  to  be  idiomatic,  she  preferred  to  use  the  guide- 
book's translation  rather  than  deal  with  the  original. 

They  had  been  skirting  about  the  Duomo  for  days, 
for  it  dominated  all  Palermo  with  its  bigness.  Seated 
in  a  wide  Piazza  that  was  dotted  about  with  mussy- 
looking  marble  saints  and  bishops,  and  a  great  statue 
of  Santa  Rosalia,  the  city's  patron,  the  Cathedral  was 
flanked  by  the  huge  Archepiscopal  Palace,  by  enormous 
convents  and  public  buildings,  so  that  one  couldn't  hope 
to  ignore  or  escape  it.  Yet  they  had  deferred  the  Duomo 
from  day  to  day  because  they  knew  their  pet  abomina- 
tion, the  Eighteenth  Century,  had  been  there  before 


THE  GOLDEN  SHELL  249 

them,  and  that  they  would  find  it  but  an  extremely 
mitigated  joy  in  consequence. 

They  knew  that  the  swamp  full  of  papyrus  plants 
of  Haukal's  time  had  given  way  to  the  "Friday 
Mosque"  which  the  two  Rogers  and  William  the  Bad 
had  left  undisturbed,  but  which  had  been  pulled  down 
by  William  the  Good — being  somewhat  ruinous,  and 
also  seeing  that  William  was  "the  Good"  in  the  eyes 
of  his  ecclesiastic  historians  because  he  reversed  the 
old  Norman  liberality  to  his  Moslem  subjects.  Then 
Walter  of  the  Mill,  an  Englishman,  built  the  Cathe- 
dral, making  it  glorious  within  and  without,  and  time 
and  additions  only  made  it  more  lovely  until  the  mod- 
ern tinkering  began.  A  foolish,  unsuitable  dome  was 
thrust  among  its  delicate  towers,  and  the  whole  interior 
ravaged  and  vulgarised. 

Still,  if  one  were  hunting  Normans,  the  Cathedral 
must  be  seen,  and  most  of  all  they  wished  to  find  the 
last  resting-place  of  Constance,  around  whose  memory 
hung  a  drama  and  a  mystery,  and  drama  and  mystery 
were  as  the  very  breath  of  their  nostrils  to  Jane  and 
Peripatetica. 

The  interior  was  impressive  for  size  despite  all  the 
scrolled  and  writhed  and  gilded  mud  pies  with  which 
Ferdinand  Fuga,  the  Neapolitan,  had  plastered  it  by 
way  of  decoration,  and  here  and  there  still  lingered 
things  worth  seeing.  Such  as  the  delicious  bas  reliefs 
of  Gagini,  Sicily's  greatest  native  sculptor;  his  statues 
of  the  Apostles  and  the  fine  old  choir  stalls,  only  making 
clearer  by  their  ancient  beauty  how  much  that  was  beau- 
tiful had  been  swept  away.  Also  there  was  the  splen- 
did silver  sarcophagus  of  Santa  Rosalia,  weighing  more 
than  a  thousand  pounds,  and  other  such  matters,  but 


250  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

the  real  attraction  of  the  Cathedral  was  the  great  por- 
phyry tombs  of  the  Kings — huge  coffers  of  ensan- 
guined stone,  as  massive  and  tremendous  as  the 
mummy  cases  of  the  Pharaohs.  Here  lay  Roger  the 
King  in  the  sternest  and  plainest  of  them,  under  a 
fretted  Gothic  canopy.  In  one  more  ornate,  his  daugh- 
ter Constance,  and  near  at  hand  her  husband  Henry 
VI.  of  Germany,  and  their  son,  the  Emperor  Frederick 
the  Second. 

Jane  and  Peripatetica  longed  that  Constance,  like 
Hamlet's  Father  might 

"ope  those  ponderous  and  marble  jaws" 

and  come  forth  to  tell  them  the  real  story  of  her  strange 
life.  For  she  too  had  been  one  of  those  hapless  fem- 
inine pawns  used  so  recklessly  in  the  game  of  king- 
doms played  by  the  men  about  her;  yet  a  whisper  still 
lingered  that  this  pawn  had  not  been  always  passive, 
but  had  reached  out  her  white  hand  and  lifted  the  king 
from  the  board,  and  thus  altered  the  whole  course  of 
the  game! 

Constance,  King  Roger's  daughter,  had  early  made 
her  choice  for  peace  and  safety  by  retiring  into  the 
veiled  seclusion  of  the  convent.  But  even  the  coif  of  the 
religieuse  was  no  sure  guard  if  the  woman  who  wore  it 
was  an  heiress,  or  of  royal  blood,  and,  the  German  alli- 
ance being  needed  after  her  father's  death,  she  was 
plucked  forth  by  her  brother,  and  in  spite  of  her  vows 
wedded  to  Henry  of  Hohenstaufen,  son  of  Frederick 
Barbarossa,  a  man  of  such  nature  she  must  have  hated 
him  from  the  first.  She  bore  him  one  son,  and  when 
her  brother  and  her  nephew — William  the  Bad  and 
William  the  Good — were  both  dead  without  heirs, 
Henry  Hohenstaufen  immediately  laid  claim  to  the 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  251 

Sicilian  crown  in  the  name  of  his  son.  The  Sicilians, 
however,  had  no  mind  to  be  ruled  by  the  Germans, 
and  chose  instead  Tancred,  son  of  the  House  of  de 
Hauteville,  though  with  a  bar  sinister  upon  his  shield. 
Tancred — a  good  and  able  sovereign — fought  off  Henry 
for  five  years,  but  then  he  too  was  dead,  and  only  his 
widow  and  infant  son  stood  between  Henry,  now  Em- 
peror of  Germany,  and  the  much-lusted-after  throne  of 
Sicily.  Against  the  wish  of  Constance,  who  would 
have  gladly  abjured  her  rights,  the  German  invaded 
the  island  and  after  incredible  cruelties  and  ravagings 
reduced  the  widow  and  baby  King  to  such  straits  that 
they  negotiated  an  honourable  surrender.  But  no  sooner 
were  they  in  Henry's  hands  than  the  child  was  mur- 
dered, and  there  ensued  a  reign  of  abominable  oppres- 
sions and  furious  revolts,  stamped  out  each  time  with 
blood  and  fire,  and  followed  by  still  bitterer  injustice 
and  plunderings.  When  matters  had  reached  a  stage 
of  desperation  Henry  died  suddenly  while  besieging  a 
rebellious  town. 

Now  in  the  Middle  Ages  no  charge  was  so  frequently 
and  lightly  made  as  that  of  poisoning.  Nearly  all 
sudden  deaths  not  wrought  by  cold  steel  were  attrib- 
uted to  some  secret  malfeasance  by  drugs.  The  fear 
of  it  fairly  obsessed  the  mediaeval  mind,  and  gave  rise 
to  legends  of  poisoned  gloves  and  rings,  deadly  smell- 
ing-balls  and  pounce  boxes,  and  fatal  chalices.  A 
whole  series  of  myths  grew  around  it.  Modern  bac- 
teriological discoveries,  and  a  knowledge  of  ptomaines, 
incline  the  modern  mind  to  believe  that  many  a  poor 
wretch  brutally  done  to  death  for  the  crime  of  poison- 
ing really  died  an  innocent  martyr  to  medical  igno- 
rance. Yet  Henry's  taking  off  was  so  welcome  and  so 


252  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

opportune,  and  that  Constance  had  struggled  to  pro- 
tect her  fellow  countrymen  and  kinspeople  from  his 
cruelties  was  so  well  known,  it  began  to  be  breathed 
about  that  she  was  a  second  Judith  who  had  reached 
out  in  agony  to  protect  her  people,  even  though  the 
blow  fell  upon  the  father  of  her  child.  At  all  events, 
whatever  the  truth  may  have  been,  she,  when  she  buried 
Henry  with  imperial  pomp,  cut  off  her  magnificent  hair 
and  laid  it  in  his  tomb.  Then,  sending  away  the  Ger- 
mans, she  ruled  "in  peace  with  great  honour"  until  the 
son  she  had  trained  to  mercy  and  virtue  was  ready  to 
take  her  place. 

Now  they  all  lie  here  together  under  their  pompous 
canopies,  and  whatever  may  be  the  real  dramas  of 
those  fierce  and  turbulent  lives,  the  great  porphyry 
sarcophagi  combine  to  turn  a  face  of  cynical  and  haughty 
silence  to  the  importunate  questioning  of  peeping 
tourists. 

In  1781  the  tombs  were  opened  by  the  Spanish  King 
Ferdinand  L,  who  found  Constance's  son  Frederick 
robed  and  crowned,  with  sword  and  orb  beside  his 
pillow,  and  almost  lifelike  in  preservation.  Henry  too 
was  almost  unchanged  by  the  six  hundred  years  that 
had  passed  in  such  change  and  turmoil  beyond  the 
walls  of  his  silent  tomb,  and  he  lay  wrapped  from  head  to 
heel  in  yellow  silk  with  the  heavy  blond  tresses  of  his 
wife  laid  upon  his  breast,  still  golden  despite  the  lapse 
of  long  centuries,  but  "nulle  ne  peut  dire  si  c'est  le 
dernier  sacrifice  d'une  femme  devouee,  ou  Phomage 
ironique  d'une  reine  contrainte  k  choisir  entre  deux 
devoirs;  place'e  entre  son  epoux  et  son  peuple,  entre 
sa  famille  et  sa  pa  trie." 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  253 

Gaspero  was  a  gift — a  priceless  parting  gift  from  the 
Northman,  who  had  gone  farther  south  to  the  Punic 
shores  from  whence  had  come  the  first  settlers  of  the 
Palermian  Coast.  And  to  console  Jane  and  Peripa- 
tetica  for  the  loss  of  his  charming  boyish  gaiety  he  had 
made  over  to  them  that  treasure.  For  Gaspero  not 
only  drove  the  smartest  and  most  comfortable  of  all 
the  victorias  on  hire  to  the  public,  but  he  was  an  artist 
in  the  matter  of  sight-seeing.  A  true  gastronome, 
mingling  flavours  with  delicate  wisdom;  keeping  de- 
licious surprises  up  his  sleeve  lest  one's  spirit  might 
pall,  and  mingling  tombs  and  sunshine,  crypts  and 
"molto  bella  vistas,"  history  and  the  colourful  daily 
life  of  the  people,  with  a  masterhand.  And  all  so  fused 
in  the  warm  atmosphere  of  his  own  sympathetic  and 
indulgent  spirit  that  "touristing"  became  a  feast  of  the 
soul  unknown  to  those  not  guided  by  his  discreet  and 
skilful  judgment.  He  knew  where  one  might  pur- 
chase honey  which  bees  had  brewed  from  orange 
flowers  into  a  sublimated  perfume;  and  he  introduced 
them  to  certain  patisseries  at  Cafleisch's  that  gave  after- 
noon tea  a  new  meaning. 

It  was  Gaspero  who  took  them  to  the  lofty  shrine  of 
Santa  Rosalia  on  Monte  Pellegrino;  that  grotto  where 
lived  the  royal  maiden  hermit,  and  where  lie  her  bones 
within  the  tomb  on  which  Gregorio  Tedeschi  has  made 
an  image  of  her  in  marble  with  a  golden  robe,  glowing 
dimly  in  the  light  of  a  hundred  lamps.  On  that  rosy 
height,  dominating  the  beautiful  landscape,  Gaspero 
told  them  the  story  of  the  niece  of  William  the  Good, 
whose  asceticism  and  devotion  set  so  deep  a  seal  of  rev- 
erence upon  the  people  of  Palermo  that  they  enshrined 
her  as  the  city's  patron  saint,  and  still  celebrate  her 


254  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

memory  every  year  with  a  great  festival.  All  the  pop- 
ulation climb  the  hill  in  July  to  say  a  prayer  in  her 
windy  eyrie,  and  the  enormous  car  bearing  her  image 
is  dragged  through  the  city's  streets,  so  towering  in  its 
gilded  glories  that  one  of  the  city  gates  has  been  un- 
roofed to  permit  of  its  entrance.  At  that  time  the 
Marina — the  wide  sea-front  street — instead  of  being 
merely  a  solemn  Corso  for  the  staid  afternoon  drive 
of  the  upper  classes,  becomes  the  scene  of  a  sort  of 
Pagan  Saturnalia.  The  Galoppo  takes  place  then — 
races  of  unmounted  free  horses — delicious  races,  Gas- 
pero  says,  in  which  there  can  be  no  jockeying,  and  in 
which  the  generous-blooded  animals  strive  madly  to 
distance  each  other  from  sheer  love  of  the  sport  and 
the  rivalry.  A  gay  people's  revel,  this,  of  flying  hoofs 
and  tossing  manes;  of  dancing  feet;  of  cries  and  songs; 
mandolins,  pipes,  and  guitars  fluting  and  twittering. 
The  water-sellers  with  their  glittering  carts  and  delicate 
bubble-like  bottles  crying  acqua  fredda,  offering  golden 
orange  juice,  and  the  beloved  pink  anisette.  The 
Polichinello  booths,  the  open-air  puppet  shows,  the 
toy-sellers  with  their  tall  poles  hung  with  sparkling 
trifles,  the  tables  spread  with  dainties  of  rosy  sugar, 
with  melting  pastries,  with  straw-covered  flasks  of 
wine.  All  perspiring,  talking,  laughing,  guzzling,  gor- 
mandising in  honour  of  the  anaemic,  ascetic  girl  who 
passed  long,  lonely,  silent  days  and  nights  in  passion- 
ate ecstasies  and  visions  in  those  high,  voiceless  soli- 
tudes. Gaspero  made  it  all  very  vivid,  with  hands, 
lips,  eyes.  He  was  possessed  with  the  drama  and 
strange  irony  of  it. 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  255 

"Have  the  Signorine  ever  seen  a  Sicilian  puppet 
show?"  Gaspero  demanded,  apropos  of  nothing  in  partic- 
ular, turning  from  a  brown  study  on  the  box  to  inquire. 

He  plainly  intended  that  this  should  be  a  memorable 
day. 

No;  the  Signorine  had  not  seen  a  puppet  show.  If 
they  properly  should  see  one  then  they  would  see  one. 
It  was  for  Gaspero  to  judge.  Very  well,  then.  He 
would  come  for  them  at  half  past  eight  that  evening — 
at  least,  he  added  with  proud  modesty,  if  the  Signorine 
would  not  object  to  his  wearing  his  best  clothes.  His 
festa  garments,  and  not  the  uniform  of  his  calling. 

Object!  On  the  contrary,  they  would  be  flattered. 
Gaspero  settled  back  to  his  duties  with  the  triumphant 
expression  of  the  artist  who  by  sudden  inspiration  has 
added  the  crowning  touch  to  his  picture.  He  com- 
posed the  days  for  them  on  his  mental  palette,  and  this 
one  he  plainly  considered  one  of  his  masterpieces. 

Yesterday  had  been  a  failure.  Jane  and  Peripa- 
tetica  had  waked  full  of  plans,  but  before  the  breakfast 
trays  had  departed  they  were  aware  of  a  heavy  sense  of 
languor  and  ennui  which  made  the  pleasantest  plans  a 
prospect  of  weariness  and  disgust. 

"If  you  sit  around  in  a  dressing-gown  all  day  we'll 
never  get  anything  done,"  suggested  Peripatetica 
crossly,  as  Jane  lounged  in  unsympathetic  silence  at 
the  window. 

"Considering  that  you've  been  half  an  hour  dawd- 
ling over  your  hair  and  have  got  it  up  crooked  at  last, 
I  wouldn't  talk  about  others,"  snapped  Jane  over  her 
shoulder  without  changing  her  attitude. 

A  strained  silence  ensued.  Peripatetica  slammed 
down  a  hand  mirror  and  spilled  a  whole  paper  of  hair- 


256  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

pins,  which  she  contemplated  stonily,  with  no  move- 
ment to  recover  them. 

A  hot  wind  whirled  up  a  spiral  of  dust  in  the  street. 

"My  arms  are  so  tired  I  can't  make  a  coiffure," 
wailed  Peripatetica. 

Jane  merely  laid  her  head  on  the  window  sill  and 
rolled  a  feeble,  melancholy  eye  at  the  disregarded  hair- 
pins. 

The  wind  sent  up  another  curtain  of  hot  dust. 

"I  don't  know  what's  the  matter,"  complained  Jane, 
"but  I  don't  feel  as  if  I  wanted  to  see  another  sight — 
ever — as  long  as  I  live." 

"Perhaps  this  is  the  sirocco  one  hears  of,"  piped 
Peripatetica  weakly.  "  The  guide-book  says  '  the  effect 
of  it  is  to  occasion  a  difficulty  in  breathing,  and  a  lassi- 
tude which  unfits  one  for  work,  especially  of  a  mental 
nature.'  " 

By  this  time  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  the  sirocco. 
A  hot,  dry  tempest  raged,  whipping  the  rattling  palms, 
driving  clouds  of  dust  before  it,  so  that  Jane  could  only 
dimly  discern  an  occasional  scurrying  cab,  or  an  over- 
taken pedestrian  pursuing  an  invisible  hat  through  the 
roaring  fog  of  flying  sand.  The  day  had  turned  to  a 
brown  and  tempestuous  dusk,  and  the  voice  of  a  hoarse 
Saharan  wind  shouted  around  the  corners. 

But  that  was  yesterday.  To-day  was  golden  and 
gracious.  Rain  in  the  night  had  cooled  and  effaced 
all  memory  of  the  sirocco,  and  Gaspero  was  outdoing 
himself  in  astonishing  and  piquant  contrasts. 

He  drove  them  to  the  Cappucini  Convent  by  the  de- 
vious route  of  the  Street  of  the  Washerwomen.  This 
roundabout  way  of  reaching  the  Convent  was  one  of 
Gaspero's  artful  devices. 


HIM   COLDKX   SHELL 

Down  each  side  of  the  broad  tree-shadowed  way, 
bordered  on  either  hand  by  the  little  stone-built  cubi- 
cles washed  pink  or  white  or  blue,  in  which  lived  the 
multitudinous  laundresses,  ran  a  clear  rushing  brook. 
These  brooks  flowed  through  a  sort  of  shallow  tunnel 
with  a  wide  orifice  before  each  dwelling,  and  in  every 
one  of  these  openings  was  standing  a  bare-legged 
blanchisseuse,  dealing  strenuously  with  Palermian 
linen,  with  skirts  tucked  up  above  sturdy  knees  that 
were  pink  and  fresh  from  the  rush  of  the  bright  water. 
Vigorous  girls  trotted  back  and  forth  with  large  baskets 
heaped  with  wet  garments,  and  bent,  but  still  energetic, 
granddams  spread  the  garments  to  dry.  Hung  them 
from  the  tree  branches,  swung  them  from  the  low 
eaves  of  the  little  dwellings,  threaded  them  on  lines 
that  kced  and  crossed  like  spiderwebs,  so  that  the 
whole  vista  was  a  flutter  of  fabrics — rose  and  white  and 
green — dancing  in  the  breeze.  A  human  and  homely 
scene,  with  play  of  brown  arms  and  bright  eyes  amid 
the  flying  linen  and  laces;  with  sounds  of  rippling 
leaves,  of  calls  and  laughter,  and  the  gurgling  of  quick 
water — drudgery  that  was  half  a  frolic  in  the  cheerful 
sunshine. 

Now  behold  Gaspero's  sense  of  dramatic  contrast! 

A  plain,  frigid  facade,  guarded  by  a  bearded  and 
rather  grubby  monk  in  a  brown  robe.  The  eye  does 
not  linger  upon  the  grubby  monk,  being  led  away  in- 
stantly by  the  vista  through  the  arched  doorway  be- 
hind him  of  a  cloistered  court;  a  court  solemn  with  the 
dark  spires  of  towering  cypresses,  and  brilliant  with 
roses — roses  wine-coloured,  golden,  pink.  Behind  this 
screen  of  flowers  and  trees  lies  the  bit  of  ground  pos- 
sessing the  peculiar  property  of  quickly  desiccating  and 
17 


258  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

mummifying  the  human  bodies  buried  in  it.  Many 
hundreds  have  been  laid  in  this  earth  for  awhile,  and 
then  removed  to  the  convent  crypts  to  make  room  for 
others.  It  is  to  these  crypts  another  monk  leads  the 
way.  A  saturnine  person  this,  handing  his  charges 
over  to  another,  still  more  gloomy,  who  sits  at  the  foot 
of  the  stairs  and  watches  at  the  crypt's  entrance.  A 
perfectly  comprehensible  depression,  his,  when  one  re- 
flects that  all  the  sunshiny  hours  of  these  golden  Sicilian 
days  he  sits  at  the  shadowed  door  of  a  great  tomb, 
mounting  guard  over  surely  the  most  grisly  charge  the 
mind  can  conceive;  over  Death's  bitterest  jest  at  Life. 

The  walls  of  the  high,  clean  corridors  are  lined  with 
glass  cases  like  a  library,  but  instead  of  printed  books 
the  shelves  are  crammed  with  ghastly  phantoms  of 
humanity,  all  grinning  in  horrible,  silent  amusement  as 
at  a  mordant,  unutterable  joke. 

Jane  and  Peripatetica  gasp  and  clutch  one  another's 
hand  at  the  grey  disorder  of  this  soundless  merriment 
— breathless,  fixed,  perpetual. 

Here  and  there  a  monk,  crowded  for  lack  of  space 
from  the  shelves,  hangs  from  a  hook  in  limp,  dishev- 
elled leanness,  his  head  drooped  mockingly  sidewise, 
his  shrunken  lips  twisted  in  a  dusty  fatuous  leer,  a  lid 
drooped  over  a  withered  eye  in  a  hideous  wink.  Others 
huddle  in  fantastic  postures  within  their  contracted 
receptacles,  as  if  convulsed  by  some  obscenely  wicked 
jest  which  forces  them  to  throw  back  their  heads,  to 
fling  out  their  hands,  to  writhe  their  limbs  into  un- 
seemly attitudes  of  amusement.  One  lies  flat,  with 
rigid  patience  in  every  line  of  the  meagre  body,  a  rictus 
of  speechless  agony  pinching  back  the  mouldy  cheeks. 

Coffins    are    heaped    about    the    floor    everywhere. 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  259 

Through  the  glass  tops  the  occupants  grin  in  weary 
scorn  from  amid  the  brown  and  crumbling  flowers  that 
have  dried  around  their  faces. 

The  ghastliest  section  of  this  ghastly  place  is  that 
where  the  women  crouch  in  their  cases,  clad  in  the 
fripperies  of  old  fashions.  Earrings  swing  from  dusty 
ears;  necklaces  clasp  lean  grey  throats;  faded  hair  is 
tortured  into  elaborate  coiffures;  laces,  silks,  and  rib- 
bons swathe  the  tragic  ruins  of  beauty.  And  these 
women,  too,  all  simper  horribly,  voicelessly,  remember- 
ing perhaps  how  dear  these  faded  gauds  once  were  be- 
fore they  passed  beyond  thought  of  "tires  and  crisping 
pins." 

"Why  do  they  do  it?"  demanded  Peripatetica  in 
whispered  disgust.  "What  strange  passion  for  pub- 
licity prompts  them  thus  to  flout  and  outrage  the  de- 
cent privacies  of  death" — for  they  noted  that  each  case 
bore  a  name  and  the  date  of  decease,  and  that  some  of 
these  dates  were  but  of  a  few  years  back.  "  Didn't  they 
know,  from  having  seen  others,  how  they  themselves 
would  look  in  their  turn  ?  Why  would  any  woman  be 
willing  to  come  here  in  laces  and  jewels  to  be  a  dis- 
gusting nightmare  of  femininity  for  other  women  to 
stare  at?" 

"Vanity  of  vanities — all  is  vanity!"  murmured  Jane. 
"Now  they  all  lie  here  laughing  at  the  strange  vanity 
that  brought  them  to  this  place — at  the  vanity  that  will 
bring  others  in  their  turn  to  this  incredible  hypo- 
geum." 

Then  they  turned  a  corner  and  came  suddenly  upon 
the  little  horribly  smiling  babies,  and  instantly  fled  in 
simultaneous  nausea  and  disgust — flinging  themselves 
at  Gaspero,  who  with  a  tenderly  sympathetic  manner 


SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

suggested  an  expedition  to  La  Favorita  as  a  corrective 
of  gruesome  impressions.  Carrying  them  swiftly  to  it 
by  way  of  the  long  double  boulevards  of  the  newer 
Palermo,  between  the  smiling  villas  of  creamy  stone 
that  were  wreathed  with  yellow  banksias  and  purple 
wisteria,  their  feet  set  among  gay  beds  of  blossoms  and 
facing  the  cheerful  street  life  of  the  town. 

"How  odd  these  Sicilians  are!"  reflected  Jane,  as 
they  drove.  "An  incomprehensible  mixture  to  an 
Anglo-Saxon.  For  example  one  finds  almost  univer- 
sal open-hearted  gentleness  and  courtesy,  and  yet  the 
Mafia  holds  the  whole  land  in  a  grip  of  iron — a  danger- 
ous, murderous,  secret  society  as  widespread  as  the 
population,  yet  never  betrayed,  and  uncontrollable  by 
any  power,  even  so  popular  and  so  democratic  a  one 
as  the  present  government." 

"Yes;  their  attitude  to  life  is  as  puzzling  as  the  face 
they  turn  toward  death,"  agreed  Peripatetica,  remem- 
bering that  almost  every  other  building  in  Taormina 
and  many  in  Palermo  wore  nailed  to  the  door  a  broad 
strip  of  mourning — often  old  and  tattered — on  which 
was  printed  "Per  mio  Frate,"  or  "Per  mia  Madre" — 
that  even  a  newspaper  kiosk  had  worn  weeds — "Per 
mio  Padre." 

At  that  very  moment  there  passed  a  cheerful  hearse, 
all  gkss  and  gilding,  wreathed  with  fresh  flowers  into 
a  gay  dancing  nosegay,  and  hung  with  fluttering  mauve 
streamers  which  announced  in  golden  letters  that  the 
white  coffin  within  enclosed  all  that  was  mortal  of  some 
one's  beloved  sister  Giuseppina.  It  might  have  been 
a  catafalque  of  some  Spirit  of  Spring,  so  many,  so  sweet, 
so  daintily  gracious  were  the  blooming  boughs  that 
accompanied  Giuseppina  to  her  last  resting-place.  .  .  . 


THE   GOLDEN   SHELL  261 

And  yet  they  had  but  just  come  from  the  grim  horrors 
of  that  crypt  of  the  Cappuccini!  .  .  . 

La  Favorita,  curiously,  is  one  of  the  few  monuments 
of  beauty  or  charm  left  by  that  long  reign  of  the  Span- 
ish monarchs  of  Sicily,  which,  with  some  mutations, 
lasted  for  about  six  hundred  years.  They  loaded  the 
land  with  a  weight  of  many  churches  and  convents,  yet 
what  one  goes  to  see  is  what  was  done  by  the  Greeks, 
the  Moslems,  and  the  Normans.  La  Favorita  is  not 
old,  as  one  counts  age  in  that  immemorial  land  of  t he- 
High  Gods.  A  slight  century  or  so  of  age  it  has,  being 
built  for  the  villegiatura  of  Ferdinando  IV.  at  the  period 
when  the  Eighteenth  Century  affected  a  taste  in  Chi- 
noiseries,  bought  blue  hawthorn  jars,  ate  from  old 
Pekin  plates,  set  up  lacquered  cabinets,  and  built 
Pagoda-esque  pleasure  houses.  The  Chateau  is  but  a 
flimsy  and  rather  vulgar  example  of  the  taste  of  the 
day,  but  the  Eighteenth  Century  often  planted  deli- 
cious gardens,  and  the  pleached  allies,  the  ilex  avenues, 
the  fountains  and  plaisances  of  La  Favorita,  make  an 
adorable  park  for  modern  Palermo,  having  by  time 
and  the  years  grown  into  a  majestic  richness  of  triumph- 
ant verdure. 

But  Gaspero  is  not  content  with  La  Favorita.  He 
has  things  even  better  in  store  for  Jane  and  Peripa- 
tetica — explaining  that  by  giving  the  most  minute  gra- 
tuity to  the  guardian  of  the  park's  nether  portal  they 
may  be  allowed  to  slip  through  into  a  private  path  that 
leads  to  the  sea.  They  do  give  the  gratuity,  and  do 
slip  through,  winding  along  a  rough  country  road  lead- 
ing under  the  beetling  red  cliffs  of  Pellegrino;  by  way 
of  olive  orchards,  mistily  grey  as  smoke,  through  which 
burn  the  rosy  spring  fires  of  the  Judas-trees,  whose 


262  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

drifting  pink  clouds  are  so  much  more  beautiful  than 
the  over-praised  almond  blossoms.  They  skirt  flowery 
meadows  all  broad  washes  of  gold  and  mauve,  past  a 
landscape  as  fair  as  a  dream  of  Paradise,  and  Gas- 
pero  draws  up  at  last  upon  a  beach  of  shining  silver 
upon  which  a  sea  of  heaving  sapphire  lips  softly  and 
without  speech.  A  sea  that  strews  those  argent  sands 
with  shells  like  rose  petals,  like  flakes  of  gold,  like  little, 
curled,  green  leaves.  And  dismounting  they  rest  there 
in  the  sunset,  forgetting  "dusty  death,"  and  glad  to  be 
alive;  glad  of  Gaspero's  tender  indulgent  joy  in  their 
pleasure  as  he  gathers  for  them  the  strewn  sea-flowers, 
tells  them  little  Sicilian  stories  of  the  people,  and  makes 
them  entirely  forget  they  haven't  had  their  tea. 

It  was  in  returning  from  this  place  of  peace  that  he 
had  that  crowning  inspiration  about  the  puppet  show, 
which  is  why  in  the  darkness  of  that  very  evening  they 
are  threading  a  black  and  greasy  alleyway  which  smells 
of  garlic  and  raw  fish.  But  they  go  cheerfully  and  con- 
fidently in  the  dimly  seen  wake  of  Gaspero's  festa  rich- 
ness of  attire. 

An  oil  torch  flares  and  reeks  before  a  calico  curtain. 
This  curtain,  brushed  aside,  shows  a  pigeon-hole  room, 
nine  feet  high,  very  narrow,  and  not  long.  On  either 
wall  hangs  a  frail  balcony,  into  one  of  which  the  three 
wriggle  carefully  and  deposit  themselves  on  a  board 
hardly  a  palm's  breadth  wide.  From  the  vantage  point 
of  these  choice  and  expensive  seats — for  which  they 
have  magnificently  squandered  six  cents  apiece — they 
are  enabled  to  look  down  about  four  inches  on  the 
heads  of  the  commonality  standing  closely  packed  into 
the  narrow  alley  leading  to  the  stage.  A  strictly  mas- 
culine commonality,  for  Gaspero  explains  in  a  whisper 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  2G3 

that  the  gentler  sex  of  Palermo  are  not  expected  to 
frequent  puppet  shows,  lest  their  delicate  sensibilities 
may  suffer  shock  from  the  broad  behaviour  of  the 
wooden  dolls.  Of  course,  he  hurries  to  add,  hand- 
somely, all  things  are  permitted  to  forestieri,  whose 
bold  fantasticalities  are  taken  for  granted. 

The  groundlings  appear  to  be  such  folk  as  fishped- 
dlers,  longshoremen,  ragpickers — what  you  will — who 
smoke  persistent  tiny  cigarettes,  and  refresh  themselves 
frequently  with  orange  juice,  or  anisette  and  water. 
These  have  plunged  to  the  extent  of  two  cents  for  their 
evening's  amusement,  and  have  an  air  of  really  not  con- 
sidering expense.  The  gallery  folk  are  of  a  higher 
class.  On  Peripatetica's  right  hand  sits  one  who  has 
the  air  of  an  unsuccessful  author  or  artist;  immedi- 
ately upon  the  entrance  of  the  forestieri  he  carefully 
assumes  an  attitude  of  sarcastic  detachment,  as  of  one 
who  lends  himself  to  the  pleasures  of  the  people  merely 
in  search  of  material.  Opposite  is  an  unmistakable 
valet  who  also,  after  a  quick  glance  at  the  newcomers, 
buttons  his  waistcoat  and  takes  on  an  appearance  of 
indulgent  condescension  to  the  situation. 

A  gay  drop  curtain,  the  size  of  a  dinner  napkin,  rolls 
up  after  a  preliminary  twitter  from  concealed  mando- 
lins. The  little  scene  is  set  in  a  wood.  From  the  left 
enters  a  splendid  miniature  figure  glittering  in  armour, 
crowned,  plumed,  and  robed,  stepping  with  a  high 
melodramatic  stride.  It  is  King  Charlemagne,  the 
inevitable  deus  ex  machina  of  every  Sicilian  puppet 
play.  Taking  the  centre  of  the  stage  and  the  spot- 
light, he  strikes  his  tin-clad  bosom  a  resounding  blow 
with  his  good  right  wooden  hand,  and  bursts  into  pas- 
sionate recitative. 


264  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

"The  cursed  Moslem  dogs  have  seized  his  subjects 
upon  the  high  seas,  and  cast  them  into  cruellest  slavery. 
Baptised  Christians  bend  their  backs  above  the  galley 
oars  of  Saracen  pirate  ships,  and  worse — oh,  worst  of 
all!" — both  hands  here  play  an  enraged  tattoo  upon 
his  resounding  bosom-pan — "they  have  seized  noble 
Christian  maidens  and  haled  them  to  their  infernal 
harems. 

"S'death!  shall  such  things  be?  No!  by  his  hali- 
dome,  no!  Rinaldo  shall  wipe  this  stain  from  his 
'scutcheon.  What  ho — without  there!" 

Enter  hastily  from  right  Orlando. 

"His  Majesty  called?" 

" Called ?  well  rather!  Go  find  me  that  good  Knight 
Rinaldo,  the  great  Paladin,  and  get  the  very  swiftest 
of  moves  on,  or  something  will  happen  which  is  likely 
to  be  distinctly  unpleasant." 

Orlando  vanishes,  and  in  a  twinkling  appears  Rin- 
aldo, more  shining,  more  resplendent,  more  befeath- 
ered  even  than  the  King;  with  an  appalling  stride 
(varied  by  a  robin-like  hop),  calculated  to  daunt  the 
boldest  worm  of  a  Moslem. 

He  awaits  his  sovereign's  commands  with  ligneous 
dignity,  but  as  the  King  pours  out  the  tale  his  legs 
rattle  with  strained  attention,  and  when  the  Christian 
maids  come  into  the  story  his  falchion  flashes  uncon- 
trollably from  its  sheath. 

"  Will  he  go  ?    Will  a  bird  fly  ?    Will  a  fish  swim  ?  " 

Charlemagne  retires,  leaving  Rinaldo  to  plan  the 
campaign  with  Orlando. 

Enter  now  another  person  in  armour,  but  wearing 
half  an  inch  more  of  length  of  blue  petticoat,  and  with 
luxuriant  locks  streaming  from  beneath  the  plumed 


THE  GOLDEN  SHELL  265 

helmet.  'Tis  Bramante,  the  warrior  maiden,  who  in 
shrill  soprano  declines  to  be  left  out  of  any  chivalric 
ruction.  Three  six-inch  swords  flash  in  the  candle- 
light; three  vows  to  conquer  or  die  bring  down  the 
dinner  napkin  to  tumultuous  applause. 

The  pit  has  been  absorbed  to  the  point  of  letting  its 
cigarettes  go  out,  and  the  author  and  the  valet  hastily 
resume  their  forgotten  condescension. 

Every  one  cracks  and  eats  melon  seeds  until  the  sec- 
ond act  reveals  the  court  of  a  Saracen  palace. 

The  thumps  of  the  three  adventurers'  striding  feet 
bring  out  hasty  swarms  of  black  slaves,  who  fall  like 
grain  before  the  Christian  swords.  Better  metal  than 
this  must  meet  a  Paladin! 

Turbaned  warriors  fling  themselves  into  the  fray, 
and  the  clash  of  steel  on  steel  rings  through  the  palace. 
Orlando  is  down,  Rinaldo  and  Bramante  fight  side  by 
side,  though  Rinaldo  staggers  with  wounds.  The 
crescented  turbans  one  by  one  roll  in  the  dust,  and  as 
the  two  panting  conquerors  lean  exhausted  upon  their 
bloody  swords — enter  the  Soldan  himself! 

Now  Turk  meets  Paladin,  and  comes  the  tug  of  war. 

Bramante  squeaks  like  a  mouse;  hops  like  a  sparrow. 

Ding,  dongl  Rinaldo  is  beaten  to  his  knee  and  the 
Soldan  shortens  his  blade  for  a  final  thrust,  but — Bra- 
mante rushes  in,  and  with  one  terrific  sweep  of  her 
sword  'shears  his  head  so  clean  from  his  shoulders 
that  it  rolls  to  the  footlights  and  puts  out  one  of  the 
candles. 

Ha!  hat    He  trusted  in  his  false  god,  Mahound! 

Bramante  hops  violently. 

Enter  suddenly,  rescued  Christian  Maid.  Also  in 
armour;  also  possessing  piercing  falsetto. 


266  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

Saved!  saved!  She  falls  clattering  upon  Rinaldo's 
breast,  and  Bramante,  after  an  instant's  hesitation, 
falls  there  on  top  of  her,  with  peculiarly  vicious  in- 
tensity. 

More  dinner  napkin.  More  frenzied  applause. 
Gaspero  draws  a  long  breath.  His  eyes  are  full  of  tears 
of  feeling. 

Scene  in  the  wood  again.  Charlemagne  has  thanked 
Rinaldo.  Has  thanked  Bramante.  Has  blessed  the 
Christian  Maid,  and  has  retired  exhausted  to  his  after- 
noon nap! 

Christian  Maid  insists  upon  expressing  her  gratitude 
to  the  Paladin  with  her  arms  round  his  neck. 

Bramante  drags  her  off  by  her  back  hair,  a  dialogue 
ensuing  which  bears  striking  likeness  to  the  interview 
of  cats  on  a  back  fence. 

Christian  Maid  opines  that  Bramante  is  no  lady,  and 
swords  are  out  instantly. 

One,  two,  three! — clash,  slash,  bang! 

Rinaldo  hops  passionately  and  futilely  around  the 
two  contestants. 

Ladies!  Ladies!  he  protests  in  agony,  but  blood  is 
beginning  to  flow,  when,  suddenly,  a  ckp  of  thunder — 
a  glitter  of  lightning! 

The  cover  of  an  ancient  tomb  in  the  wood  rolls  away, 
and  from  the  black  pit  rises  a  grisly  skeleton.  Six  legs 
clatter  and  rattle  like  pie-pans;  swords  fall.  It  is  the 
ghost  of  Rinaldo's  father.  Christian  Maid  is  really 
Rinaldo's  sister,  he  explains,  carried  off  by  Saracens 
in  her  childhood. 

Skeleton  pulls  down  the  cover  of  the  tomb  and  re- 
tires to  innocuous  desuetude. 

Opportune  entry  of  Orlando  miraculously  cured  of 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  267 

his  wounds.  Rinaldo  has  an  inspiration,  and  bestows 
upon  Orlando  the  hand  of  the  Christian  Maid. 

All  the  tins  of  the  kitchen  tumble  at  once — every- 
body has  fallen  on  every  one  else's  mail-clad  bosom! . . . 

Dear  Gaspero!    It  has  been  a  wonderful  day. 


A  slow,  fine  rain  falls.  Vapours  roll  among  the 
vapoury  hills. 

It  is  just  the  day  for  the  museum,  and  such  a  mu- 
seum! Not  one  of  those  cold  and  formal  mausoleums 
built  by  the  modern  world  for  the  beauties  of  the  dead 
past,  but  a  fine  old  monastery  of  the  Philippines  with 
two  cloistered  cortile;  with  a  long,  closed  gallery  for  the 
hanging  of  the  pictures;  with  big  refectories,  ambu- 
latories, and  chapels  for  housing  the  sculpture,  and 
with  its  little  cells  crammed  with  gold  and  silver  work, 
with  enamels,  with  embroideries,  with  jewels.  A 
gracious  casket  for  the  treasures  of  old  time. 

The  rain  is  dripping  softly  into  the  open  cloister, 
where  the  wet  garlands  of  wisteria  and  heavy-clustered 
gold  of  the  banksias  are  distilling  their  mingled  fra- 
grance in  the  damp  air.  The  rain  makes  sweet  tin- 
klings  in  the  old  fountains  and  in  the  sculptured  well- 
heads gathered  in  the  court;  on  the  cloister  walls  are 
grouped  bas-reliefs — tinted  Madonnas  by  Gagini; 
Greek  fragments,  stone  vases  standing  on  the  floor, 
twisted  columns,  broken  but  lovely  torsos. 

Indeed,  it  is  not  like  a  museum  at  all.  No  ticketed 
rigidity,  no  historical  sequence — just  treasures  set 
about  where  the  setting  will  best  accord  with  and  dis- 
play their  beauties.  There  is  not  even  a  catalogue  to 
be  had,  which  gives  a  delightful  sense  of  freedom  at 


268  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

first,  but  this  has  its  drawbacks  when  Jane  and  Peri- 
pa  tetica  come  to  the  tomb  of  Aprilis  in  a  side  chamber, 
and  wish  to  know  something  more  of  this  sad  little 
maid  sculptured  into  the  marble  of  the  tomb's  sunken 
lid — wrapped  in  a  straitly  folded  wimple,  with  slim 
crossed  feet,  and  small  head  turned  half  aside;  smiling 
innocently  in  the  sleep  which  has  lasted  so  long.  Aprilis, 
whose  April  had  never  blossomed  into  May,  and  whose 
epitaph  has  for  five  hundred  years  called  Sicily  to  wit- 
ness the  grief  of  those  who  lost  her: 

"Sicilia,  Hie  Jacet  Aprilis.     Miseranda  Puella 

Unicce  Quaelugens  Occultipa  Diem  18  Otobre 

XIII     1495." 

Of  course,  the  guide-books  ignore  her.  Trust  the 
guide-books  to  preserve  a  stony  silence  about  any- 
thing of  real  human  interest!  .  .  . 

Another  court;  a  great  basin  where  papyrus  grows, 
where  bananas  wave  silken  banners  amid  the  delicate 
plumes  of  tall  bamboo,  where  are  more  purple  wreaths 
of  wistaria  and  snow-drifts  of  roses,  and  where  the 
treasures  are  mostly  Greek.  Very  notable  among  these 
a  marble  tripod  draped  with  the  supple  folds  of  a 
python;  the  lax  power  of  the  great  snake  subtly  con- 
trasted with,  and  emphasized  by,  the  rigid  lines  of  the 
seat  of  the  soothsayer.  More  notable  still,  in  the  Sala 
del  Fauna,  is  an  archaic  statue  of  Athene  from  Seli- 
nunto — like  some  splendid  sharded  insect  in  her  helmet 
and  b'on  skin — rescued  from  that  vast  wreck  of  a  city. 
They  had  travelled  from  Palermo  a  few  days  before  to 
see  that  city,  drawn  by  Crawford's  fine  passages  of  de- 
scription, and  there  they,  too,  had  wondered  at  the 
astonishing  remains  of  those  astonishing  Greeks. 


THE   GOLDEN   SHELL 

.  .  .  "There  is  nothing  in  Europe  like  the  ruins  of 
Selinunto.  Side  by  side,  not  one  stone  upon  another, 
as  they  fell  at  the  earthquake  shock,  the  remains  of 
four  temples  lie  in  the  dust  within  the  city,  and  still 
more  gigantic  fragments  of  three  others  lie  without  the 
ruined  walls.  At  first  sight  the  confusion  looks  so 
terrific  that  the  whole  seems  as  if  it  might  have  fallen 
from  the  sky,  from  a  destruction  of  the  home  of  the 
gods — as  if  Zeus  might  have  hurled  a  city  at  mankind, 
to  fall  upon  Sicily  in  a  wild  wreck  of  senseless  stone. 
Blocks  that  are  Cyclopean  lie  like  jackstraws  one  upon 
another;  sections  of  columns  twenty-eight  feet  round- 
are  tossed  together  upon  the  ground  like  leaves  from 
a  basket,  and  fragments  of  cornice  fifteen  feet  long  lie 
across  them,  or  stand  half  upright,  or  lean  against  the 
enormous  steps.  No  words  can  explain  to  the  mind 
the  involuntary  shock  which  the  senses  feel  at  first 
sight  of  it  all.  One  touches  the  stones  in  wonder,  com- 
paring one's  small  human  stature  with  their  mass,  and 
the  intellect  strains  hopelessly  to  recall  their  original  posi- 
tion; one  climbs  in  and  out  among  them,  sometimes 
mounting,  sometimes  descending,  as  one  might  pick 
one's  way  through  an  enormous  quarry,  scarcely  un- 
derstanding that  the  blocks  one  touches  have  all  been 
hewn  into  shape  by  human  hands,  and  that  the  hills 
from  which  men  brought  them  are  but  an  outline  in  the 
distance."  .  .  . 

All  that  quiet  falling  day  Jane  and  Peripatetica  wan- 
dered in  the  transformed  monastery,  staring  at  the 
great  metopes;  lingering  among  the  Saracenic  carv- 
ings and  jewelled  windows,  poring  over  Phoenician 
seals;  over  the  amazing  ecclesiastic  needlework,  the  gold 
monstrances,  the  carved  gems,  and  last  and  best  of  all 


270  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

some  delicious  reliefs  at  sight  of  which  they  forgave  at 
once  and  forever  their  old  enemy,  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury, for  all  its  disgusting  crimes  against  beauty.  They 
sought  madly  through  the  books  for  some  mention  of 
these  tall,  adorable  nymphs  in  adorably  impossible 
attitudes,  these  curled  and  winged  and  dimpled  babies, 
fluttering  like  fat  little  wrens  sweetly  ignorant  of  the 
laws  of  gravitation;  but  as  always  on  any  subject  of 
interest  Baedeker  and  the  rest  frigidly  refused  to  tell 
the  name  of  the  man  out  of  whose  head  and  hands  had 
grown  these  enchanting  figures. 

"Oh,  dear  Unknown!"  cries  Jane  regretfully,  "why 
is  your  noble  name  buried  in  silence!  I  wish  to  make 
a  pilgrimage  to  your  tomb,  to  cover  it  with  Sicilian 
roses,  and  breathe  a  prayer  for  the  repose  of  your  sweet 
and  gracious  soul." 

"Me  too!"  echoes  Peripatetica,  in  tender  scorn  of 
the  stodgy  rules  of  English  grammar. 


The  Paschal  season  is  near. 

Always,  in  all  lands  of  all  faiths,  the  coming  of  Spring, 
the  yearly  resurrection  of  life  and  nature,  has  been  wel- 
comed with  gladness.  The  occultation  of  Osiris,  of 
Baldur,  of  Persephone,  of  the  Christ,  is  mourned;  their 
coming  again  hailed  with  flowers  and  feasting. 

Palermo  is  filling  with  visitors;  with  a  glory  of  flowers 
and  verdure  in  which  the  loveliest  city  in  the  world 
grows  daily  lovelier.  The  Conca  d'Oro — the  Shell  of 
Gold — swims  in  a  golden  sea  of  sunshine. 

On  the  Wednesday  before  Easter  the  whole  popula- 
tion exchanges  cakes.  Cakes  apotheosized  by  surpris- 
ing splendours  of  icing;  icing,  gilded,  silvered,  snowily 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  271 

sculptured  into  Loves  and  angels  and  figures  of  national 
heroes.  Icing  wrought  into  elaborate  garlands  tinted 
rose,  purple,  and  green;  built  into  towers  and  ornate 
architectural  devices.  Structures  of  confectionery  three 
feet  high  are  borne  on  big  platters  between  two  men. 
Every  child  carries  gay  little  cakes  to  be  presented  to 
grandparents  and  godparents,  to  cousins  and  play- 
mates. 

All  Maundy  Thursday  the  population  moves  from 
church  to  church.  Masses  moan  incessant  in  every 
chapel.  Before  the  Virgins  on  every  street-shrine, 
draped  in  black,  candles  blaze  and  drip.  Priests  and 
monks  hurry  to  and  fro,  bent  upon  preparations  for  the 
great  spectacle  of  the  morrow. 

Friday  morning  early  all  Palermo  is  in  the  streets  in 
its  best  attire.  Small  children  dressed  as  little  car- 
dinals, as  nuns,  as  priests,  bishops,  angels  with  gilded 
wings,  as  Virgins,  as  John  the  Baptist,  are  on  their  way 
to  the  churches  from  which  the  processions  are  to  flow. 
Monks  and  friars  gather  from  outlying  country  con- 
vents. 

At  ten  o'clock  a  throbbing  dirge  begins.  The  first 
of  the  processions  is  under  way.  A  band  plays  a 
funeral  march,  and  is  followed  by  acolytes  swinging 
censers.  Pious  elderly  citizens,  perspiring  in  frock 
coats,  carry  tall,  flaming  candles  that  drop  wax  upon 
their  clothes.  A  few  priests,  in  black  and  purple,  fol- 
low, bearing  holy  vessels.  Behind  these  a  row  of  men 
in  mediaeval  armour  and  carrying  halberds,  surround 
a  heavy,  hand-borne  bier  hung  with  black  velvet,  on 
which  rests  a  glass  and  gilt  case  containing  an  image 
of  the  Crucified — a  life-sized  image,  brown  with  age. 
Presumably  it  has  been  taken  from  some  ancient  and 


272  SEEKERS   IN  SICILY 

revered  Spanish  crucifix,  for  it  is  crowned  with  thorns, 
is  emaciated,  is  writhed  with  pain,  painted  with  the 
dark,  faded  red  of  streaming  wounds — one  of  those 
agonised  figures  conceived  by  the  pious  realism  of  the 
older  Spanish  sculptors. 

Immediately  follows  another  hand-borne  litter  upon 
which  is  standing  a  tall  Virgin  clothed  in  black  hood 
and  mantle — a  pallid,  narrow-faced  Virgin — also  Span- 
ish and  realistic.  The  delicate  clasped  hands  hold  a 
lace  handkerchief,  her  breast  is  hung  with  votive  silver 
hearts.  The  features  are  distorted  with  grief,  the  lids, 
reddened  with  tears,  are  drooped  over  sunken,  deep- 
shadowed  eyes,  and  her  countenance  seamed  and 
withered — a  poignant  figure  of  unutterable  maternal 
woe !  Burning  candles  alternate  with  mounds  of  roses 
about  the  edge  of  the  platform  on  which  she  stands. 

As  the  dead  Son  and  the  mourning  Mother  pass,  hats 
come  off  and  heads  are  bowed,  signs  of  the  cross  are 
made.  A  few  of  the  older  peasant  women  fall  to  their 
knees  upon  the  sidewalk  and  mutter  an  Agnus  Dei,  a 
Hail  Mary,  with  streaming  tears.  A  priest  walks  last 
of  all,  rattling  a  contribution  box  at  the  end  of  a  long 
stick,  looking  anxiously  at  the  balconies  and  windows 
from  which  the  well-to-do  spectators  lean.  For  his  is 
but  a  poor  church;  the  velvet  palls  and  cloaks  are  cot- 
ton, and  frayed  and  faded,  the  bier  and  platform  old, 
and  so  massive  that  the  stalwart  bearers  must  set  them 
down  often  to  wipe  away  the  sweat,  which  is  why  it 
takes  advantage  of  the  unpre-empted  morning  hours 
and  is  early  in  the  field. 

Later  in  the  day,  in  Gaspero's  cab  and  under  his 
guidance,  Jane  and  Peripatetica  take  up  a  coign  of 
vantage  in  a  square  debouching  upon  the  Corso  Vit- 


THE  GOLDEN  SHELL  273 

torio  Emanuele,  along  which  the  Jesuits  are  to  parade 
at  four  o'clock.  Here  the  crowd  is  solidly  packed,  the 
balconies  and  windows  crowded  with  the  aristocracy 
of  Palermo.  The  Guarda  Mobili  in  their  splendid  uni- 
forms keep  open  the  way  for  the  marching  fraternities 
and  sodalities  with  their  crucifixes  and  Virgin-em- 
broidered banners,  open  a  lane  for  the  monks,  for  the 
crowds  of  tiny  angels  and  cardinals  who  must  patter 
for  hours  in  the  slow-moving  procession.  Priests  and 
acolytes  swarm;  censers  steam,  hundreds  of  candles  of 
all  weights  and  heights  flare  and  flame,  and  then  slowly, 
slowly,  to  the  wailing  music,  moves  forward  a  splendid 
catafalque  of  crystal  in  which  lies  stretched  upon  a  bed 
of  white  velvet,  richly  wrought  with  gold,  a  fair  youth. 
A  youth  with  white,  naked  limbs,  relaxed  and  pure; 
not  soiled  by  the  grimy,  bloody  agonies  of  martyrdom, 
but  poetised  to  a  picture  of  Love  too  early  dead — a 
charming  image.  And  the  beautiful  tall  Virgin  is  not 
the  simple  Mother  of  the  Carpenter  convulsed  with 
despair.  She  is  a  stately,  sorrowful  Queen,  crowned, 
hung  with  jewels,  robed  in  superb  royal  weeds;  proudly 
refusing  to  show  the  full  depth  of  her  bereavement,  as 
she  follows  her  dead  Son  amid  the  wax  torches  shining 
palely  in  the  sunshine  through  the  white  and  green  of 
the  shfcaves  of  lilies  that  grow  about  her  knees. 

The  emotional  effect  upon  the  crowd  is  intense;  one 
can  hear  like  an  undertone  the  sound  of  indrawn,  gulp- 
ing breath.  Gaspero  passes  his  sleeve  across  the  tears 
in  his  dark  eyes. 

This  version  of  the  tragedy  is  lifted  above  the  real- 
ism of  pain  into  a  penetrating  and  lovely  symbolism 
that  swells  the  heart  with  poignant  and  tender  emo- 
tions as  the  divine  funeral  train  winds  slowly  away, 
18 


274  SEEKERS   IN   SICILY 

with  perfume,  with  lights,  and  with  the  slow  sobbing  of 
the  muffled  drums. 

So  had  Sicilians  two  thousand  years  ago  crowded 
every  spring  to  see  a  similar  spectacle  of  a  weeping 
Queen  of  Love  following  an  image  of  a  lovely  dead 
youth.  .  .  . 

"Ah!  and  himself — Adonis — how  beautiful  to  be- 
hold he  lies  on  his  silver  couch,  with  the  first  down  on 
his  cheeks,  the  thrice  beloved  Adonis — Adonis  beloved 
even  among  the  dead.  .  .  .  O  Queen,  O  Aphrodite, 
that  playest  with  gold,  lo,  from  the  stream  eternal  of 
Acheron  they  have  brought  back  to  thee  Adonis — even 
in  the  twelfth  month  they  have  brought  him,  the  dainty- 
footed  Hours.  .  .  .  Before  him  lie  all  that  the  tall  tree- 
branches  bear,  and  the  delicate  gardens,  arrayed  in 
baskets  of  silver;  and  the  golden  vessels  are  full  of  the 
incense  of  Syria.  And  all  the  dainty  cakes  that  women 
fashion  in  the  kneading-tray,  mingling  blossoms  mani- 
fold with  the  white  wheaten  flour,  all  that  is  wrought 
of  honey  sweet,  and  in  soft  olive-oil,  all  cakes  fashioned 
in  semblance  of  things  that  fly,  and  of  things  that  creep, 
lo,  here  they  are  set  before  him. 

"  Here  are  built  for  him  shadowy  bowers  of  green, 
all  laden  with  tender  anise,  and  children  flit  overhead 
— the  little  Loves — as  the  young  nightingales  perched 
upon  the  trees  fly  forth  and  try  their  wings  from  bough 
to  bough.  .  .  . 

"  But  lo,  in  the  morning  we  will  all  of  us  gather  with 
the  dew,  and  carry  him  forth  among  the  waves  that 
break  upon  the  beach,  and  with  locks  unloosed,  and 
ungirt  raiment  falling  to  the  ankles,  and  bosoms  bare 
we  will  begin  our  shrill  sweet  song. 

"Thou  only,  dear  Adonis,  so  men  tell,  thou  only  of 


THE  GOLDEN  SHELL  275 

the  demigods,  dost  visit  both  this  world  and  the  stream 
of  Acheron.  .  .  .  Dear  has  thine  advent  been,  Adonis, 
and  dear  shall  it  be  when  thou  comest  again." 


Gaspero  never  permitted  Jane  and  Peripatetica  to 
lose  anything.  Doubling  through  narrow,  black  streets 
where  lofty  buildings  nearly  met  above  their  heads 
and  where  they  snatched  hurried,  delighted  glimpses 
of  intricate  old  grilles,  of  arched  and  wheeled  windows, 
of  splendid  hatchments  and  fine  carved  portals — he 
brought  them  out  at  admirable  view  points  for  all  the 
many  similar  parades  in  widely  separated  parts  of  the 
city. 

As  the  purple  dusk  came  down  they  found  themselves 
in  the  Marina,  watching  the  last  of  the  processions 
moving  slowly  down  the  broad  avenue  to  the  sea-street. 
The  crowd  had  thinned.  The  small  angels  and  John 
the  Baptists  went  wearily  upon  dusty  little  feet,  their 
crowns  of  now  wilted  roses  canted  at  dissipated  angles 
over  their  flushed  and  tearful  faces,  the  heavy,  half- 
burned  wax  torches  wabbling  dangerously  near  the 
draggled  veils  and  drooping  gilt  wings. 

The  bearers  of  the  images  paused  often  to  set  down 
their  heavy  burdens.  The  balconies  began  to  blos- 
som with  tinted  lights.  Here  and  there  the  Virgin 
with  her  twinkling  candles  was  turned  toward  a  bal- 
cony filled  with  some  specially  faithful  children  of  the 
church,  and  stood  facing  them  a  moment,  tall,  ghostly, 
tragical,  in  the  gathering  darkness,  before  passing  on- 
ward in  her  long  pilgrimage  of  mourning  that  was  to 
end  within  the  church  doors  as  night  came  down. 

"It  is  enough,  Gaspero,"  they  cried,  as  the  flicker- 


276  SEEKERS  IN   SICILY 

ing  train  passed  away  down  the  water  avenue  into  the 
blue  blackness  of  the  shadowy  evening,  and  then  they 
went  homewards  full  of  that  strange  mingled  sense  of 
languor  and  refreshment — that  "cleansing  of  the  soul 
with  pity  and  terror"  which  is  the  gift  of  the  heroic 
tragedies.  .  .  . 

Every  hour  of  that  night  the  bells  rang  and  masses 
sang  throughout  the  city.  All  day  Saturday  the  churches 
swarmed,  and  the  purple  veils,  hung  before  the  altar 
pictures  throughout  Lent,  were  rent  from  top  to  bot- 
som  to  the  sound  of  the  wailing  De  Profundis.  Sun- 
day the  religious  world  seemed  to  exhale  itself  in  music 
and  flowers  and  triumphant  masses.  Easter  Monday 
morning  the  populace  hurried  through  the  necessary 
domestic  duties  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  for  the 
Pasqua  Flora  is  the  day  of  villegiatura  for  all  Palermo. 
Every  one  wears  new  clothes.  Even  the  humble  asi- 
nelli  are,  for  once  in  the  year  at  least,  brushed  and 
combed,  and  decorated  with  fresh  red  tassels  if  the 
master  is  too  poor  to  afford  more  elaboration  of  the 
always  elaborate  harness.  Those  asses  who  have  the 
luck  to  be  the  property  of  rich  contadini  appear  re- 
splendent in  new  caparison;  with  towering  brass 
collars  heavy  with  scarlet  chenille,  flashing  with  mir- 
rors and  inlays  of  mother-of-pearl,  glittering  from  head 
to  tail  with  brass  buckles,  with  bells  and  red  tags  in- 
numerable, drawing  new  carts  carved  and  painted  with 
all  the  myths  and  legends  and  history  of  Sicily  in  crude 
chromatic  vivacity. 

Whole  families  stream  countrywards  in  these  carts 
to-day;  babies  clean  and  starched  for  once,  grand- 
mothers in  purple  kerchiefs  tied  under  the  chin  and 
yellow  kerchiefs  crossed  upon  the  breast,  with  gold 


THE   GOLDEN  SHELL  277 

hoops  in  their  cars;  daughters  in  flowered  cottons, 
their  uncovered  heads  wrought  with  fearful  and  won- 
derful pompadours,  sleek  and  jet  black. 

Along  the  seashore,  up  the  sides  of  Pellegrino,  in  all 
the  open  country  about  Palermo,  they  spread  and  sun 
themselves,  eat,  sleep,  make  love,  gossip,  dance,  and 
sing  in  the  golden  air. 

Gaspero  drives  slowly  through  the  wide-spread  pic- 
nic, pausing  wherever  a  characteristic  group  attracts. 

Here  lies  a  whole  family  asleep;  gorged  with  endless 
coils  of  macaroni,  saturated  with  sun — a  mere  heap  of 
crude-coloured  clothes,  of  brown  open-mouthed  faces, 
of  lax  limbs  that  to-morrow  must  be  gathered  up  again 
for  a  hand-to-hand  struggle  for  bread  for  another  twelve- 
month. 

Under  this  tree  a  long  table  is  spread  with  loaves, 
with  meats,  with  iced  cakes,  and  straw-covered  flasks. 
A  rich  confrere  of  Gaspero  celebrates  the  betrothal  of 
his  only  daughter,  a  plump  and  solid  heiress,  who  be- 
neath an  inky  and  mighty  pompadour  simpers  at  the 
broad  jokes  of  her  pursey,  elderly  fiance.  A  solid 
fiance",  financially  and  physically.  Altogether  a  solid 
match,  says  Gaspero.  A  dashing  guest  thrums  his 
guitar  and  sings  throatily  of  the  joys  of  love  and  of 
money  in  the  stocking. 

Here  a  group  of  very  old  men  watch  about  a  boiling 
pot  hung  above  a  little  fire,  and  twitter  reminiscences  of 
youth,  catching  one  last  pale  gleam  of  the  fast  sinking 
sun  of  their  meagre,  toilsome  lives. 

Everywhere  music  and  laughter  and  the  smell  of 
flowers  and  food  and  wine. 

A  big  piano-organ  is  playing  a  rouladed  waltz  to  a 
ring  of  young  spectators,  crowding  to  watch  the  elabo- 


278  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

rate  steps  of  dancers  swinging  about  singly  with  grace- 
steps,  with  high  prancings,  with  tarantella  flourishes. 
Male  dancers,  all.  Gaspero  explains  that  no  respect- 
able girl  would  be  allowed  to  join  them,  the  Sicilian 
girl's  diversions  being  distressingly  limited. 

One  of  the  boyish  dancers,  with  the  keen,  bold  face 
and  square  head  of  a  mediaeval  Condottiere,  flourishes 
his  light  cane  in  fencing  passes  as  he  swings,  which 
challenge  inspires  a  spectator  to  leap  into  the  ring  with 
his  own  cane  drawn.  The  newcomer,  an  obvious 
dandy  in  pointed  patent-leather  shoes,  blue-ribboned 
hat,  and  light  suit  of  cheap  smartness,  crosses  canes 
dashingly  with  the  would-be  fencer,  and  the  rest  of  the 
dancers  drop  back  to  see  the  fun. 

The  Condottiere  finds  in  a  few  passes  that  he  has 
met  his  master  and  craftily  begins  a  waiting  game. 
Lithe  and  quick  as  a  cat,  he  circles  and  gives  way,  his 
opponent  driving  him  round  and  round  the  ring,  lun- 
ging daringly  and  playing  to  the  gallery.  He  flourishes 
unnecessarily,  pursues  recklessly,  assumes  a  contempt- 
uous carelessness  of  the  boy,  always  circling,  always  on 
guard,  always  coolly  thrifty  of  breath  and  strength. 

The  dandy  grows  tired  and  angry,  rushes  furiously 
to  make  an  end  of  his  nimble  evasive  antagonist,  who 
at  last  turns  with  cold  courage  and  by  a  twist  of  his 
weapon  sends  the  dandy's  cane  flying  clean  over  the 
ring  of  spectators,  who  scream  with  delight.  But  the 
Condottiere  is  a  generous  as  well  as  a  wily  foe.  He 
offers  an  embrace.  The  dandy  reluctantly  allows  him- 
self to  be  kissed  on  both  cheeks,  but  the  victor  catches 
him  about  the  waist  and  waltzes  him  around  madly 
amid  the  laughter  and  bravas  of  the  crowd. 


THE  GOLDEN  SHELL  279 

It  is  Jane's  and  Peripatetica's  last  day  in  Sicily. 
Gaspero  has  taken  them  to  Santa  Maria  di  Gesu,  the 
Minorite  Monastery,  but  has  paused  by  the  way  for  a 
look  at  San  Giovanni  degli  Eremiti,  whose  little  red 
domes  float  clear  against  the  burning  azure  sky  like 
coral-tinted  bubbles,  so  airily  do  they  rise  from  the 
green  of  the  high  hill-garden  with  its  tiny  cloisters  of 
miniature  columns  and  meniscule  grey  arches  heavy 
with  yellow  roses.  And  yet  from  this  rosy,  arch  little 
fane  rang  the  Sicilian  Vespers  which  gave  the  signal 
for  one  of  the  bloodiest  butcheries  in  history.  It  was 
Pasqua  Flora,  and  all  Palermo,  as  it  did  yesterday,  was 
feasting  and  dancing  out  of  doors.  One  of  the  French 
soldiers — then  in  occupation,  upholding  the  hated 
House  of  Anjou — insulted  a  Sicilian  girl  and  was 
stabbed.  Just  then  the  Vesper  bells  rang  from  San 
Giovanni  degli  Eremiti,  and  at  the  signal  the  conspir- 
acy, long  festering,  broke  into  open  flame,  and  Palermo 
rose  and  massacred  the  French  till  the  streets  ran  with 
blood. 

The  Gesu  Monastery  has  no  such  sanguinary  asso- 
ciations. The  plain  little  building,  high  on  the  hill- 
side, stands  buried  among  enormous  cypresses  and 
clouds  of  roses,  and  surrounded  by  the  massive  marble 
tombs  and  mortuary  chapels  of  Palermo's  nobility  and 
Sicily's  magnates.  It  is  a  place  of  great  peace  and 
silence.  A  place  of  unutterable  beauty  of  outlook 
upon  gorges  feathered  with  pines,  upon  stern  violet 
mountains  melting  into  more  distant  heights  of  ame- 
thyst, into  outlines  of  hyacinth,  into  silhouettes  of 
mauve,  into  high  ghostly  shadows  that  vanish  into 
floods  of  aerial  blue.  A  place  which  looks  on  sea  and 
shore  and  city,  and  where  the  chemistry  of  sun  and  air 


280  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

transmutes  the  multitudinous  tones  of  the  landscape 
to  an  incredible  witchery  of  tint,  to  living  hues  like 
those  of  the  colours  of  jewels,  of  flowers,  of  the  little 
burning  feathers  of  the  butterflies'  wings. 

"Doubtless  God  might  have  made  a  more  beautiful 
view  than  this  from  the  Gesu,  but  doubtless  God  never 
did,"  sighed  Jane. 

But  still  Gaspero  is  not  satisfied.  He  can  never  rest 
content  with  anything  less  than  perfection.  Yes;  he 
admits  the  Gesu  is  admirable,  but  he  knows  a  still 
more  "molto  bella  vista." 

"There  is  nothing  better  than  the  best,"  says  Jane 
sententiously.  "I  am  drenched  and  satiated  with  all 
the  loveliness  that  I  can  bear.  Any  other  'vista'  would 
be  an  anticlimax." 

"Dear  Jane,"  remonstrated  Peripatetica,  "haven't 
you  yet  guessed  that  Gaspero  is  a  wizard?  I  sus- 
pected it  the  very  first  day.  Of  course,  you  can  see 
that  he's  no  ordinary  guide  and  cab-driver,  and,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  I  don't  believe  there  are  any  such  sights 
as  the  ones  we  think  he  has  showed  us.  You've  been 
on  Broadway?  Well,  can  you  lay  your  hand  on  your 
heart,  and  honestly  affirm  that  when  you  are  there 
again  you  won't  at  once  realize  that  there  never  were 
such  beauties  as  these  we've  been  seeing?  Won't  you 
know  then  that  this  is  all  a  glamour — a  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion of  Gaspero's  mind  upon  ours?" 

"Don't  be  ridiculous!"  snapped  Jane.  "What  is 
all  this  rhodomontade  leading  to?" 

"To  a  desire  to  follow  the  wizard,"  answered  Peri- 
patetica recklessly.  "Whither  Gaspero  goeth  I  go! 
I  am  fully  prepared  to  wallow  in  glamours,  and  besides 
we've  luncheon  in  our  basket,  so  don't  be  tiresome, 


THE  GOLDEN  SHELL  281 

Jane.  Let's  abandon  the  commonplace  and  'follow 
the  Gleam.'  " 

"Very  well,"  laughed  Jane,  climbing  into  the  car- 
riage. "Gaspero  and  'gleam'  if  you  like." 

Whether  the  molto  bella  vista  ever  existed  remains 
still  a  subject  of  dispute.  Peripatetica  insists  that  it 
was  only  a  pretext  for  leading  them  to  a  place  where 
Gaspero  intended  they  should  lunch,  but  Jane,  who 
always  kicks  against  the  philosophic  pricks  of  the  de- 
terminists,  contends  that  she  exercised  a  certain  meas- 
ure of  free  will  in  the  matter.  However  that  may  be, 
they  wound  among  mountain  roads,  by  caves  Gaspero 
said  were  once  the  dwellings  of  giants,  by  little  out- 
lying villages  where  old  women  span  and  wove  in  the 
doorways  and  young  women  made  lace;  where  copper- 
workers  sat  in  the  street  and  with  musical  clang  of  little 
hammers  beat  out  glittering  vessels  of  rosy  metal. 
They  scattered  flocks  of  goats  from  their  path,  the 
shaggy  white  bucks  leaping  nimbly  upon  the  wall  and 
staring  at  them  with  curious  ironic,  satyr-like  glances; 
and  far,  very  far  up,  they  came  upon  a  mountain 
meadow  mistily  shadowed  by  enormous  gnarled  olive 
trees — a  meadow  knee-deep  in  flowers.  A  meadow 
that  was  a  sea  of  flowers,  orange,  golden  and  lemon, 
rippling  and  dimpling  in  the  light  and  shade,  breathed 
upon  by  the  faint  flying  airs  of  those  high  spaces: 

"In  Arcady,  in  Arcady! 
Where  all  the  leaves  are  merry — " 

cried  Peripatetica  joyously. 

"  Of  course  it's  Arcady,"  said  Jane,  with  conviction. 
"And  we  have  come  upon  it  in  the  Age — or  perhaps 
the  moment — of  Gold.  "Gaspero,"  she  announced 
firmly,  "  we  will  lunch  right  here." 


282  SEEKERS  IN  SICILY 

"But  Signorina — the  Vista!"  protested  the  Wizard 
with  a  quizzical  smile. 

It  was  really  (Peripatetica  is  convinced)  Gaspero's 
subtle  understanding  of  Jane's  character  which  led 
him  to  offer  just  sufficient  opposition  to  fix  her  deter- 
mination to  stay  at  the  very  spot  where  he  could  best 
work  his  magic,  for  a  flowing  world  of  shadowy  purple 
swam  about  them  in  a  thousand  suave  folds  down  to  a 
shining  sea,  and  he  could  not  have  showed  them  any 
vista  more  beautiful.  But  why  attempt  to  shake  Jane's 
pleased  conviction  it  was  really  owing  to  her  that  for  a 
few  hours  she  and  Peripatetica  could  truly  say,  "I  too 
have  lived  in  Arcadia."  That  it  was  owing  to  her  they 
cheerfully  fed  there,  and  lay  cradled  for  long  warm 
hours  in  that  perfumed  flood  of  flowers  in  happy  thought- 
less silence,  wrapped  in  a  fold  of  the  Earth  Mother's 
— the  great  Demeter's — mantle;  a  fold  embroidered  by 
the  fine  fingers  of  her  daughter  Persephone,  the  Opener 
of  Flowers. 


That  night,  when  the  full  moon  rose  over  the  silky 
sea,  far  down  the  horizon  behind  them  slowly  faded 
into  the  distance  the  ghostly  silver  peaks  of  the  en- 
chanted Land  of  the  Older  Gods. 


THE   END 


THE  COMPLETE  WORKS 

OF 

WILLIAM  J.  LOCKE 

"LIFE    IS    A    GLORIOUS    THING." — IV.  J.    Locke 

44  If  you  wish  to  be  lifted  out  of  the  petty  cares  of  to-day,  read  one 
of  Locke's  novels.  You  may  select  any  from  the  following  titles  and 
be  certain  of  meeting  some  new  and  delightful  friends.  His  char- 
acters are  worth  knowing." — Baltimore  Sun, 

The  Morals  of  Marcus  Ordeyne  The  Demagogue  and  Lady  Phayre 

At  the  Gate  of  Samaria  The  Beloved  Vagabond 

A  Study  in  Shadows  The  White  Dove 

Where  Love  Is  The  Usurper 

Derelicts  Septimus  Idols 

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The  Beloved  Vagabond 

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Make  his  acquaintance  some  dreary,  rain-soaked  evening  and  find 
the  vagabond  nerve-thrilling  in  your  own  heart." 

— Chicago  Reeord'fferald. 

Septimus 

"Septimus  is  the  joy  of  the  year." — American  Magazine. 

The  Morals  of  Marcus  Ordeyne 

"  A  literary  event  of  the  first  importance." — Boston  Herald. 
"  One  of  those  rare  and  much-to-be-desired  stories  which  keep  ona 
divided  between  an  interested  impatience  to  get  on,  and  an  irresis- 
tible temptation  to  linger  for  full  enjoyment  by  the  way." — Lift. 

Where  Love  Is 

44  A  capital  story  told  with  skill."— New  York  Evening  Sun. 

•'  One  of  those  unusual  novels  of  which  the  end  is  as  good  as  the 

beginning." — New  York  Globe. 


WILLIAM  J.  LOCKE 

The  Usurper 

"  Contains  the  hall-mark  of  genius  itself.  The  plot  is  masterly  in 
conception,  the  descriptions  are  all  vivid  flashes  from  a  brilliant 
pen.  It  is  impossible  to  read  and  not  marvel  at  the  skilled  work- 
manship and  the  constant  dramatic  intensity  of  the  incident,  situ- 
ations and  climax." — The  Boston  Herald. 

Derelicts 

"  Mr.  Locke  tells  his  story  in  a  very  true,  a  very  moving,  and  a 
very  noble  book.  If  any  one  can  read  the  last  chapter  with  dry 
eyes  we  shall  be  surprised.  '  Derelicts  '  is  an  impressive,  an  im- 
portant book.  Yvonne  is  a  creation  that  any  artist  might  be  proud 
of."—  The  Daily  Chronicle. 

Idols 

44  One  of  the  very  few  distinguished  novels  of  this  present  book 

season." — The  Daily  Mail. 

u  A  brilliantly  written  and  eminently  readable  book." 

— The  London  Daily  Telegraph. 

A  Study  in  Shadows 

"  Mr.  Locke  has  achieved  a  distinct  success  in  this  novel.  He  has 
struck  many  emotional  chords,  and  struck  them  all  with  a  firm, 
sure  hand.  In  the  relations  between  Katharine  and  Raine  he  had 
a  delicate  problem  to  handle,  and  he  has  handled  it  delicately." 

—The  Daily  Chronicle. 

The  White  Dove 

"It  is  an  interesting  story.  The  characters  are  strongly  conceived 
and  vividly  presented,  and  the  dramatic  moments  are  powerfully 
realized." — The  Morning  Post. 

The  Demagogue  and  Lady  Phayre 

"  Think  of  Locke's  clever  books.  Then  think  of  a  book  as  differ- 
ent from  any  of  these  as  one  can  well  imagine — that  will  be  Mr. 
Locke's  new  book."— New  York  World. 

At  the  Gate  of  Samaria 

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ANATOLE    FRANCE 

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.The  Red  Lily.    Translated  by  WINIFRED  STEPHENS. 

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Containing : 

The  Procurator  of  Judea  Amycus  and  Celestine 

Our  Lady's  Juggler  Madam  de  Luzy,  etc. 

The  Garden  of  Epicurus.  Translated  by  ALFRED  R. 
ALLINSON,  Containing: 

In  the  Elysian  Fields  Careers  for  Women 

Card  Houses  The  Priory,  etc. 

The   Crime   of  Sylvestre    Bonnard.    Translated  by 
LAFCADIO  HEARN. 

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WINIFRED  STEPHENS  in  "  French  Novelists  of  Today" 


